Dream Journal
by ConiferousSiblings
Summary: I've uploaded parts of this story on my Tumblr, but I realized that I'd been neglecting my account here for a while... The focus of the story is light-hearted romance, Pinecest (Dipper x Mabel). I think its one of my better written ones & I hope you all enjoy! (recently changed to M rating for smut content). In case its not clear in the story they are older here (seniors in HS/18).
1. Chapter 1

Summertime in Gravity Falls could range anywhere between boiling hot and unseasonably chilly, but today was one of those rare and beautiful days where the sun, the clouds and the wind had all worked together to create the perfect afternoon. Unfortunately for most of the people in the town they would be stuck inside and working through the gorgeous Thursday, but Mabel and Dipper were out by the shimmering waters of the uncreatively named Gravity Falls Lake and enjoying their afternoon to the fullest.

Mabel was currently hunched kneeling by a stand of bushes near the edge of the lake, a fully charged up water-gun held in her hand and her eyes darting through the gaps in the branches for a sign of her prey. Her ears perked as she heard a snapping branch nearby and she made a fake gun-cocking sound quietly and held up her squirt pistol in bent arms like an FBI agent in a cheesy movie.

"The enemy was close… I could almost smell his unwashed shirt." she muttered to herself as she slowly stalked toward the source of the crunching sound, trying to make no other sound herself along the way.

There! A glimpse of Dippers old blue cap peeking out from some bushes up ahead. With a wide grin Mabel dashed out from the trees, all thoughts of stealth gone as she gave a triumphant war cry and jumped over the bush, executed a perfect roll and came up with her toy gun blazing… at a stick with a hat propped up on it.

"Coward!" Mabel cried out just before the water-balloon came down from the tree above and splashed across her back, soaking her to the skin through her colorful tee-shirt and she fired wildly up in the air in retaliation.

"Truce! Truce!" Dipper called from above and she saw him clearly now, perched on a low branch. "I only had the one balloon and it was _really_ hard to climb up here without popping the stupid thing. I broke two others all over myself trying."

"Bringing a water balloon to a gun fight is in strict violation of the Water-War Conventions. Surrender now and we can begin the war crimes trial." Mabel said, her pistol trained on her brother and a mock-stern expression on her face.

"Is the penalty for my crime going to be soaking by firing squad?" Dipper asked, his hands placed on the back of his head in surrender as he cooperated with his sisters game.

"The judge _may _be lenient and commute your sentence to a candy-related fine and 15 years of hard labor if you come quietly." Mabel replied thoughtfully.

"Only fifteen? Well, sign me up." Dipper said in a playfully sarcastic tone and he started to awkwardly climb down the wide spaced branches of the tree.

"I only said _may!_" Mabel said with a wicked grin as she blasted her now helpless brother with her squirt gun, laughing in triumph.

"Oh come on!" Dipper laughed in return. "I thought the convention also forbid executing helpless prisoners?"

"You were shot while trying to escape- no one can prove otherwise." Mabel said matter-of-factly as she emptied the last reserves of her squirt pistol by soaking Dipper in the back of the head right as he reached the ground to retrieve his hat/decoy.

A sudden breeze that rustled through the branches caused the soaked teens to shiver in their wet clothes.

"Had you put ice cubes in your gun again?" Dipper asked his sister as they made their way back to the lake shore as he ran his hands roughly over his goosebumped arms.

"A couple," Mabel admitted, "but they had melted a while ago."

"Lets get into the water already," Dipper shivered, "I'm about ready for some swimming."

"Me too! Race you to the lake!" Mabel said, bending her legs for a quick dash.

"Shouldn't we change first? I don't really feel like trying to swim in pants if I can help it." Dipper said dryly.

"Agreed!" Mabel chirped cheerfully, and she stopped to peel the damp shirt off her back, and unzip her skirt to reveal the one-piece swimsuit that she had been wearing underneath her clothes. She turned and saw Dipper looking at her strangely and she smiled back, "What? It never hurts to be prepared."

"Alright… well, I'm going to grab my trunks and go change behind the bushes." Dipper said. She noticed that his face had an odd blush to it and decided to needle him a little for fun.

"I'll stand guard and make sure no one tries to peek while you are changing and offends your delicate boy modesty." Mabel said seriously as she twirled her empty squirt gun menacingly.

"Shut up." Dipper chuckled playfully and headed off to the trees after stopping at the spot on the beach where the twins had left the cooler and their backpacks to retrieve his swimming clothes.

Mabel tossed her toy gun to the side and made her way over to lake, then she waded in carefully till she was up to her knees, adjusting slowly to the chill of the water. Unfortunately Mabel didn't have much more time to ease herself in before she heard a sudden splashing behind her and turned just in time to see Dipper before he grabbed her up in a bear hug to lift her off her feet and drop her with a splash into the lake.

"You jerk!" she spluttered as she came back up to the surface and ducked back underwater to hook her hands behind her laughing brothers knees and tugged hard till he stumbled and fell into the lake with a cry of dismay. He rose up, still laughing and shook the water from the shaggy mop of hair on his head. It wasn't long before the infectious sound set Mabel to laughing along as well and the twins splashed one another playfully, enjoying the water and sun and one another's familiar company.

They swam out into the lake, chasing one another through the slow waves of the crystal blue water. Whenever one or the other would pull too far ahead they would unconsciously slow down to let their twin catch up and keep the game going. Dipper was the first to stop completely, floating lazily in the water and taking a few relaxing breaths before Mabel backstroked her way over to him and "accidentally" splashed him full in the face before speeding away with a giggle as he growled playfully and dived after her with renewed energy.

—

The twins made their way back to the shallows eventually when the afternoon sun had started to get lower in the sky and the air had grown cool. Mabel and Dipper toweled themselves off and then lay back side by side on the empty beach to enjoy the last of the late afternoon heat before the evening would set in and bring the cold air down from the mountains with it.

"Mmm… now _that _is what I'd call a pretty perfect day." Mabel said contentedly as she stretched out on the thick red towel under her, enjoying the heat of the sun on her bare legs and arms.

"Yeah, me too." Dipper agreed, and then continued with a sort of nervous chuckle, "I seem to have a lot of those with you."

Mabel paused, slightly confused by his odd word choice. "Well, I _am _the life of the party – no one knows fun like the Mabel!" she said with a small chuckle of her own.

"Very true." Dipper agreed and cleared his throat a few times before he fell curiously silent. Mabel turned over and saw that he seemed to be looking off across the lake absently, but she noticed that his ears were flushed an unusually bright red. _Whats up with him?_

"Hey, whats up? Checking for gobblewonkers or something?" she teased playfully.

"Heh… no, just thinking." Dipper replied, shooting her a small false smile.

"Thinking 'bout…" Mabel said as she made a 'go on' gesture with one of her hands, her curiosity piqued by her brothers weird behavior.

"Just thinking… that its been great today, just getting to spend some time with you with no distractions. I've missed getting to hang out with you like this, you know… just you and me." Dipper said quietly.

Mabel felt a soft smile creep across her face. "Me too… its been really fun. Why'd you get so weird about it though?"

"I was not being weird." Dipper said defensively.

"Excuse me Sir Dippingsauce, but as you are so fond of pointing out – I know weird intimately." Mabel said in her best 'authority-voice'.

"Well, I have seen some of your boyfriends…" Dipper teased back, but she could hear a weird edge to his voice when he said it that annoyed her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she shot back heatedly.

"Nothing, never mind – I'm being an idiot." Dipper said as he lay back against his own towel and pulled his hat low over his eyes to shade them from the sun.

"You can say that again…" Mabel muttered quietly as she lay back down, but something about her brothers manner was just nagging at her and it wasn't long before she sat up once more and turned to him again. "Seriously, whats bothering you? This is Mabel talking here, you know you can tell me anything."

There was a beat of silence before Dipper answered with a sigh, "Not everything."

"What? Did you kill a guy or something?" Mabel asked in mock-seriousness, "Because its not like I haven't thought of the best way to dispose of a body if you need some help…"

"No." Dipper said, "Why would you be thinking of that anyway?"

"Oh like you've never tried to figure out how to commit the perfect crime when you're bored." Mabel said, reaching across the space between them to give her brother a playful poke in the ribs that sent an involuntary giggle out of him. At the sound of his ticklish laughter Mabel felt an evil grin spread across her face. "Alright, either you're going to tell me whats up or I'm going to have to go all Spanish Inquisition on you."

"Mabel that really isn't a good idea-" Dipper said as he tried to slowly rise up to escape without alerting Mabel, but she was too quick and pounced on him, sitting on his stomach and furiously tickling around his ribs and arms which sent him into spasming fits of laughter.

"Confess! Confess and you will go free!" Mabel chanted in a deep and sinister (for Mabel) voice. She knew that Dipper could throw her off at any time since he had already hit his growth spurt and been taller and heavier than her once they had hit their Sophmore year, but she also knew that he never would since he was so crazy protective of her. The thought gave her a slight twinge of guilt, but not enough to stop her fiendish torture. "Confess!"

"Never.." Dipper gasped out as he tried to stifle the laughter that was pouring out of him, "..would rather die." he grunted through gritted teeth as he clenched his arms and resisted the urge to fling his sister off of him.

"Oh a tough guy eh?" Mabel said as she continued her merciless assault, "Are you gonna make me have to go full elementary school on you? Do I have to purple some nurples over here? Is Dipper Pines gonna have to get a visit from wet willy?"

Dippers patience finally snapped and he lifted himself up quickly, sending his sister tumbling down to the ground with a gentle thump. She looked up in surprise to find that his face was almost beet red and he was breathing hard and heavy from the ordeal. When he noticed that she had turned to look up at him he quickly turned to the side and cast his eyes down to his bare feet.

"I love you." he said quietly, so quiet that she almost didn't hear him over the sound of the wind in the trees or the waves lapping the shore.

"I love you too bro, but I'm not gonna stop till you tell me the secret." Mabel replied with a slight nervous laugh. _Something is going on here._

"Thats the secret." Dipper said flatly as he slumped back down onto his towel and pulled his cap down tight over his eyes. "I love… I mean I'm _in _love with you."

"Oh." Mabel responded, stunned, and she felt a flush spread over her face when she realized that she'd just been straddling his chest and poking at him for 5 minutes before he had made his confession.

"Yeah." he said quietly, and she could see that his face was frozen like a mask, all emotions carefully locked away behind blank eyes.

The twins sat in silence for what felt like an eternity, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or so. Mabel felt her heart racing as her mind jumped and sparked at all the strange thoughts buzzing through her head. What did he mean he was _in _love with her? Like… _in love-_in love? What do you even say to that? What do you say when your brother tells you he is in love with you? What do you say when you aren't grossed out by the idea even though every part of your mind tells you that you are _supposed _to be and that scares the hell out of you? Why did she suddenly think of those times when he'd pulled her out of some danger, put a bandage over an injury, smiled and cheered her on when she tried out for plays or clubs? Why did she think of his smile now and want to see it there on his face instead of the hollow eyes and compressed lips that had set in ever since he had made his confession?

Why did she feel this was more _normal _than it should be? Why did she _want _it to be normal?

It rushed in on her all at once, sudden and violent as a sledgehammer to her reeling brain that she was actually feeling _happy _about what she had just heard. She looked over and saw that Dippers eyes were still locked on the ground as if he was examining a particularly interesting pebble or sand grain, and she realized that he must feel so _alone _right now that she felt something well up inside of her in response, something warm and heavy and terrifying. She reached her hand out to him slowly, feeling as if he were miles away before her hand touched his bare shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. He turned to her and their eyes locked briefly and in an instant she felt a strange shudder before they both turned away again at the same time… but she kept her hand on his shoulder and felt her already racing heart skip a beat when she felt his own hand reach up and lay over hers, giving it a single squeeze.

Neither had said a word yet, but both had started slowly scooting together till they were pressed side by side and Mabel could feel Dippers heart beating hard just through the feel of his still damp skin under her palm. _What is happening here… What are we doing? _

Their faces turned up once again and this time neither of them looked away when their eyes met. She could see how wide his eyes were then, so similar to her own under heavier brows but with that familiar shape that she had seen every time she glanced in a mirror. Her eyes were drawn down to his lightly parted lips and she saw his tongue dart out nervously to moisten them – something that she realized that she'd been doing unconsciously herself at that very moment. She was so focused that she was startled by the feel of his hand reaching out to softly run his fingers along her jawline and across her cheek before tilting her head up. He froze then, his head tilted slightly, questioningly and she nodded once in agreement before he brought his face to hers and pressed their lips together.

It was soft and gentle – hesitant but eager and unlike any kiss that Mabel had felt before in her short life and with a soft sigh she felt herself begin to kiss back, her arm running up from Dippers shoulder and up his neck, tangling her fingers gently through his damp hair. Before long they had grown more confident and Mabel felt her heart flutter in excitement as she felt Dipper thrust his tongue into her mouth and she responded eagerly with her own, pushing him further. _Time to show him who's the Alpha Twin here, _Mabel thought to herself as she pulled his face closer to hers and moaned softly into his mouth as she ran her nails gently across his scalp and she was thrilled to see how he seemed to melt at her touch.

They broke the kiss, panting and he pulled her body closer to his, and she happily slid up from the beach blanket and onto his lap before she pulled his face back to hers as they started kissing with more heat, his own hands roaming along her back and up her sides which made Mabel purr happily as she kissed her way along Dippers cheek and bit gently on his earlobe to blow a soft hot breath into the shell of his ear which caused him to groan happily.

"I love you too." she whispered gently into his ear and felt something open up inside as those words left her mouth, as if someone had lit a fire in a great empty space in her chest that she never even knew was there.

Dipper pulled her in close and she felt his own breath in her ear now, a sensation that sent a shiver all up and down her spine, and she heard him whisper back - "Mabel -

**-we're going to be late for school! Get up already!" **Dippers voice bellowed with a strange echo.

With a start Mabel found herself lying in bed, her own bed in back at her parents house in California and the calendar hanging on the wall was unfortunately showing November instead of that gorgeous June afternoon.

_That's the third time… _Mabel thought guiltily as she shook the sleep from her head and stumbled around the dim room for her clothes. _At least this time I woke up before we did… well… before we went further… like last time. _She sighed as she grabbed a random sweater out from her chest of drawers and slid it over her head, enjoying a brief stay in sweater-town… nice non-judgemental sweater-town. She pulled the sweater down the rest of the way and grabbed her backpack up from its resting place by the door but decided to take a last look around the room before she left in case she had forgotten anything.

She glanced over at her nightstand and at the small blue book sitting there that Dipper had given her for her last birthday and shook her head to herself. _Definitely another one that I'm going to have to leave out of the dream journal._


	2. Chapter 2

"C'mon Mabel – you can do this… factoring is easy… its like… um… its like division! Yeah, simple division. Sort of. Except for the part with the cross multiplication, but c'mon its easy stuff… look, you just have to _blah blah blah blah.." _

The soothing sound of Dippers normally-excitable voice in lecture mode continues to wind its way through the air while Mabel's eyes wander from the photocopied study-sheet. Finding nothing to hold her interest in the kitchen, she slumps down on her elbows atop the dining room table as Dipper continues to drone on and on about the weird mash of symbols and numbers on the handout, occasionally pinching herself in the leg to keep from drifting off to sleep as words like _quadratic _and _binomial _spew out uncontrollably from her twin brothers mouth.

_Okay, maybe asking Dipper for help studying for the big test wasn't a great idea… he's super smart and all, but he is just _butts _when it comes to explaining stuff. I'd have better luck trying to get Waddles to tutor me in math._

The teen felt a silly smile spread across her face at the thought of her beloved pet pig in glasses and a sport coat trying to teach her math problems in front of a blackboard. The image is so vivid that Mabel can practically hear him oinking along most haughtily before stopping in the middle of his lecture to start eating the blackboard eraser and the thought causes a small snort of laughter to escape, startling Dipper in mid-ramble.

"Mabel, your math test is tomorrow – you really should be paying attention if you want to pull that grade up from a 'D'." Dipper said, his voice firm but not unkind. _He's trying to do a 'teacher' voice, _Mabel thought, _that is just adorable. _

"Well I can't help it – this stuff is _boring. _Seriously, I have no idea how you managed to even stay awake in this class when you took it much less that weird crazy rocket-science math that you're doing now." Mabel replied defensively.

"Its just Pre-Cal, not rocket science," Dipper said, "and I'm taking time away from studying for my final for _that_ class to help you out here, could you please just focus with me for a couple of minutes so we could get through this?"

Mabel felt a twinge of guilt at that – it was true that he was only here because she'd pounded on his door for five minutes straight begging him for help earlier that day, but she was desperate here! A spark of anger flared up at the tone of her brothers voice and she snapped back at him -

"I'm sorry! Really, I wish I understood this nerd stuff as well as you did so I wouldn't have to bug you about it but I don't! Binomials? Quadra-whatevers? When am I ever going to need to know this stuff in real life?"

"Tomorrow, so that you can pass the test about them and then mom and dad won't ground you again for flunking." Dipper said flatly.

Mabel's mouth snaps shut and she lets out a defeated sigh. "I guess thats a pretty practical use for it."

Mabel takes a deep breath and picks up the sheet once again, turning her eyes toward it and focusing as if she could just download the knowledge directly into her brain by looking at it hard enough. It doesn't work, just like it hasn't every time she's tried it since she was a kid and with a not-at-all-exaggerated groan she tosses the sheet into the air and buries her face in her hands in frustration. She feels a sniffle start to come on and tries to viciously squash it down before it can reach the surface, but it still manages to make its way out and her shoulders shudder slightly as she struggles to contain a sob. Mabel feels a gentle pressure on her shoulder and her eyes look up from between the cage of her fingers to see Dipper reaching his arm out to her from across the table with a look of concern etched on his face.

"Mabel, whats wrong?" he asks and the note of worry in his voice reaches in and touches something warm inside her.

"Nothing." she says quietly, her words muffled slightly since her face is still buried in her hands, but Dippers hand stays on her shoulder and she sees him duck his head down and lock eyes with her and she feels unable to ignore the question in his look.

"It's just… this math stuff makes me feel stupid. I hate that feeling." Mabel says, even more quietly.

"Whoa now – you are NOT stupid Mabel, why would you think that?" Dipper said quickly, his hand giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze that sends a little pulse down to that warm spot in her chest once again.

"Because I'm terrible at it! I look at all the little _x_'s and _y_'s and brackets and junk and my brain just goes _pffffft_. I see everyone else in class nodding along when the teacher is blabbing about this stuff and I just… ugh. Sorry for spazzing out on you like this, its just been really stressful in this class."

Another sniffle claws its way up Mabel's throat and she hates herself just a little for letting something like a test get her down so bad, especially in front of Dipper who has this ridiculous deer-in-the-headlights expression at the sight of his sisters sad face. He reaches out for her, hesitantly, and cups her face in his hand, raising her eyes up to meet his – its a strangely intimate moment and to Mabel's confusion she finds her heart beating just slightly faster at the look in her brothers eyes. Its nothing provocative – but its a look with such genuine concern and love that she feels her sudden sense of gloom become just a tiny bit brighter. Her mind flashes briefly to her dreams of the past few weeks but she shakes the images from her head. _Get a grip on yourself Mabel... he's just being friendly... it isn't like that at all._

"You shouldn't feel bad about the math thing… look, this stuff comes easy to me but its not like it really means that my brain is better or anything like that. You're way better than me at lots of other things that I am, to be one-hundred-percent honest here, actually pretty jealous of."

"Really?" she asks, somewhat skeptically.

"Definitely. You've got WAY better people skills than me & you've got me flat out beat when it comes to artsy-creative stuff. I do well in school because its the kind of thing I'm good at – facts and numbers and writing papers and things… but I'd trade in a few of my _A_'s for some of your confidence any day." Dipper said, his words coming out in a jumble as he sought desperately to bring the smile back to his sisters face.

It works too – Mabel feels the corners of her mouth start to twitch and turn up just a little bit and she wipes the last of the sadness from her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes are shining as she returns Dippers look with one of her own, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear. She doesn't know it but Dipper is struck by the thought of how beautiful Mabel's smile is at that moment and he feels just a hint of warmth start to spread its way through his face.

"Thanks Dipper… that really means a lot to me to hear you say that." she says, and the earlier warmth in her own chest starts to blaze away like a cheerful campfire in her heart.

"Well I mean it and I thought you needed to hear it… seriously, you're a pretty amazing person Mabel and you shouldn't let yourself get down just over stuff like this." Dipper said firmly. His ears grow hot when he realizes that he's still cupping his sisters face in his hand and he starts to pull it away, but to his surprise he feels Mabel's own cool strong fingers lay themselves over his to keep it right where it is.

_What is she doing? _Dipper wonders to himself, trying to slow the uncomfortable way his heart is starting to speed up at the feel of her skin against his own. _C'mon man, don't be weird – this is MABEL here… she's just affectionate that way. Sort of? I mean hugging yeah, but this feels a little more… stop it – there is nothing weird about this. Nope. Nothing at all._

"You always know how to cheer me up," Mabel said. "I mean, I know you gotta say stuff like that because you're my brother but its still nice to hear things like that once in a while."

"I'm not saying it just because you're my sister…" Dipper said quietly, his eyes dropping slightly to not meet her gaze, "I mean all of it. You're really special to me Mabel."

_What am I doing? _Mabel found herself thinking as she pressed Dippers hand to her cheek firmly, feeling a blush start to spread over her own cheeks to match the ruby-red tint of her brothers ears after hearing what he just said… and the way he said it. _It just feels nice having him so close… I mean, we aren't doing anything _wrong _or anything… its like a hug or something, but for the face! Okay, so its nothing like a hug… _

A silence grows between them for a few beats, not so much awkward as it is… expectant. Surprisingly, for the both of them, Dipper is the first to move – his free hand crosses the gap between them to brush a few stray strands of hair away from Mabel's face from where they had fallen earlier, his fingertips making a lingering trail down her cheek and along her jawline. Its a simple gesture, but in the odd heightened tension of the moment the touch feels almost electric against Mabel's skin. Not quite sure herself of what she's doing she takes Dippers other hand from her face and presses it to her lips firmly and though she sees his eyes widen just a tiny bit, he doesn't pull away.

_Okay Pines… this is getting a little intense here. Time to put a stop to it. _Dipper thought to himself. _Any minute now. Just get back to the math and then a nice long and extremely _cold _shower before dinner._

Dipper doesn't pull away though and when he starts to slowly lean forward across the table toward Mabel she matches the gesture, their faces so close now that they can feel the warmth of one another's breath on their skin.

_Okay, maybe this _is _weird, _Mabel thought to herself before she closed her eyes and thrust her lips against Dippers. There's a moment of sheer panic in her as she starts to realize the enormous jump she just took before she feels, to her surprise and relief, Dipper starting to kiss her back and then she just lets all those thoughts drop away gently into the background as she enjoys the moment.

Dippers normally racing mind is calmed as well and when he feels Mabel's lips part and her tongue dart into his mouth he returns her energy in kind, running his hands up and down her back, along her sides and to her neck and he feels a surge of delight at hearing happy-sounding murmurs bubbling up from her throat when he starts to run his fingers through her long chestnut brown curls. He feels her own slim strong arms wind their way around his neck and pull him in closer to her as she kisses him with an energy unlike anything he's felt before in his short romantic life and he feels a contented sigh come from his own lips without realizing he was making it_._

After what seems like too little time they break the kiss, each hesitant to pull away and end this perfect-feeling moment and have to return to the real world… and to the fallout from what they have just done. There's a tense moment of silence as they each brace for the other to get mad, to storm out and call them a freak but after a few seconds of silence they realize that it isn't going to happen. Mabel doesn't see anger in Dippers eyes, or disgust or disappointment… he just looks sort of nervous and hesitant and adorably red in the face.

"So… um… that was unexpected." Mabel said to break the silence.

"Yeah… I would say so." Dipper said hesitantly. "Not… not bad though. Just unexpected."

"No – definitely not bad." Mabel said. "Um… confession time… I _may _have sort of been thinking of things like this… with you… for kind of a while."

"Oh." Dipper replied, a faraway look in his eyes. "Like, how long?"

"Not important." Mabel said quickly.

"No, I guess it isn't." Dipper said.

"So… should we get back to studying that math then?" Mabel asked, feeling suddenly awkward and exposed.

"Yeah… sure. Math." Dipper said.

They turned back to the table and the textbook that had lain forgotten between them just a few moments ago. After a minute of silence Dipper reaches out and takes Mabel's hand in his and gives it a small squeeze.

"Um… after we finish studying would you want to… I mean… maybe… um… do that again?" Dipper asks quietly, his eyes low and not quite meeting hers.

The warm feeling in Mabel's heart flares up high and she fights hard to stop the ecstatic grin that she knows is starting to spread across her face.

"I would definitely like that." she says and the two turned back to the book once again.

It was probably a world record for shortest study session in history.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a gorgeous spring day out in Piedmont, California but the Pines twins were completely unaware of that fact since they were sitting together in the living room of their parents house with the shades drawn. Mabel was currently lying stretched across the faded old yellow couch, a pencil being chewed thoughtfully in her teeth as she tried to work out a particularly tricky problem on her homework assignment. Dipper, meanwhile, had finished his work a half hour ago and had it sitting in a neat stack on the side table and was passing the time with a mystery novel slightly thicker than a large brick. Every now and then he felt like getting up, but he was currently pinned to the couch by his sisters legs lying across his lap and didn't feel like putting up the effort required to move them. Truth be told, Dipper didn't really mind being stuck in so close with her, though the fact that Mabel would occasionally draw a leg back and poke him in the ribs with her foot seemingly for no other reason than to interrupt his reading was just a teensy bit irritating. All in all though it was a perfectly peaceful day and Dipper was enjoying the comfortable silence of the afternoon, which meant that he was somewhat startled when it was suddenly broken.

"Ugh." Mabel groaned, tossing her worksheet into the air. "I've been staring at the same question for like, 4 hours. I'm taking a break."

"Mabel we've only been here an hour tops... and you just took a break about 10 minutes ago." Dipper admonished gently.

"Well its _boring_. I'm not going to waste a potentially awesome Saturday afternoon on this junk." Mabel objected. "I mean, Monday through Friday is pretty much all wasted in class anyway so why would I give up even more free time on our days off?"

"Well what would you want to do instead? I'm up for whatever." Dipper said, lazily flipping a page of his novel but not really absorbing what he was reading.

"I dunno... there's nothing good playing at the movies and we're pretty broke anyway... how about we just hang out here?" Mabel said absentmindedly.

"I'd like that." Dipper said.

Mabel smiled and swung her legs off the couch, releasing Dipper from her hold on him and then sidled up next to him. Dipper felt his heart start to beat just a little bit faster as he felt her press in close and as her fingers slid down his arm he felt his own twine about hers automatically. This was nice... it had taken a little getting used to... okay, a _lot_ of getting used to, but these past few weeks exploring these new feelings that they had started to open up to one another had been some of the happiest that Dipper could recall. He was basking in the feeling of being next to Mabel and trying to work up the courage to maybe give her a quick kiss when she suddenly turned to him with a somewhat sly look in her eye.

"Something on your mind their Mabel?" Dipper asked.

"Sort of- I was reading a bit of stuff online about the constellations for my Astronomy class-" Mabel began.

"I'm still surprised you took that one- I never figured you for an astronomy buff." Dipper said.

"Well I got it confused for astrology when I was signing up but this one is pretty fun too – we're going to get to use the huge telescope at the community college campus across town later this semester!" Mabel replied.

"That one in the big dome? I've always wanted to check that thing out." Dipper said with a slight note of jealousy in his voice.

"Well thats what you get for taking Band as your elective – all that gets you is more alone time with your tuba." Mabel said with a note of gentle teasing in her voice.

"You'll be eating those words when I get my big tuba recital at Carnegie Hall one day." Dipper replied playfully.

"I can see it now," Mabel said, "Dipper Pines presents – '_An Evening of Robot Farts_'... The place is going to be booked solid for months."

"Weren't we talking about something else before all this unjustified slandering of the noble tuba?" Dipper asked, somewhat annoyed with himself that his sisters teasing about his choice of instrument always seemed to get under his skin.

"We were? Oh, right- Astronomy! Anyway like I was saying before, I was reading about the constellations and came across some fun facts. Did you know that the Big Dipper is also called _Ursa Major_, or in not dead-people language, the Great Bear?" Mabel said with an excited tone.

"Yeah, I think I may have heard something like that." Dipper replied.

"So it got me to thinking – you beat up some kind of magic bear back when we were kids, right?" Mabel continued with a grin starting to twitch at the corners of her mouth.

"I'm not sure the Multibear was really _magic_, he was just like... a talking bear with 7 heads? Alright so maybe he was at least sort of magical... wait, where are you going with this?" Dipper asked, his voice taking on a note of confusion.

"Well I started thinking that you've got that birthmark on your face of the Big Dipper, a.k.a. The Big Bear and that you've beaten up a crazy magic bear and stuff and all of it once it hit me - you must have bear superpowers or something!" Mabel squeaked out excitedly.

"Mabel thats insane- what would bear super-powers even be?" Dipper said, unconsciously pulling his faded old blue cap tighter down over his forehead to mash more hair over his hated birthmark.

"Well I know that you like to sleep in a lot when its cold outside... um... and you really like honey on pretty much everything." Mabel began, ticking off points on her fingers.

"Everyone likes honey, there is nothing weird about that." Dipper grumbled.

"Well whatever- I'm just saying its a possibility. You could be a super-hero! Wouldn't that be awesome? You could go fight crime with your mysterious bear magic: like Spider-Man with his spider powers or Batman with his bat powers."

"Batman doesn't have powers! Thats what makes him cool." Dipper objected.

"So what you're saying is that even if you don't have bear powers you agree that this would be a cool thing to do?" Mabel said, putting her hand on Dippers shoulder and looking him very solemnly in the eye.

"Why do I feel like this is all leading up to something?" Dipper asked dryly.

"And I will be your awesome crime-fighting partner – the Amazing Mabellina! We could have matching costumes and everything." she said, suddenly pulling Dipper in a one armed grip and waving her free hand before them as if sketching out a picture of this bizarre future she was predicting.

"So the two of us are going to put on costumes, go out in the dead of night and fight the non-existant crime in the _incredibly_ peaceful suburbs we live in using just your enthusiasm and my entirely theoretical 'bear powers'?" Dipper asked sarcastically.

"Thats about the size of it." Mabel agreed with a nod. "Though I'd bring my enthusiasm _and_ my grappling hook."

"Well I'm sold- I can't see any huge glaring problems with this plan whatsoever." Dipper said with mock cheerfulness.

"I thought you'd say that – so I took the liberty of making you this!" Mabel said, reaching into the large bag of arts and crafts junk she toted around in case she was struck by a sudden inspiration. She rummaged around for a few seconds before giving a triumphant cackle and drawing out an ungainly tangle of knitted black yarn, tossing it over to Dipper.

The teen fumbled around with the bundle of cloth until he was able to make some sense of it and realized that it was a cape with an attached hood and eye-holes. There were a pair of little round bear ears on top that looked like they would be better suited on a toddlers feety-pajamas than a super-hero costume.

"Mabel, I'm not wearing this." Dipper said flatly.

"But if you don't wear it the villains will learn your secret identity and then they can get to your loved ones! You don't want a bunch of crazy guys in costumes trying to tie me to giant bombs or throw me off bridges all the time, right?" Mabel asked, her face taking on that sad puppy-dog stare that Dipper always found nearly impossible to resist.

"I thought you were going to be my sidekick? When are they going to have time to kidnap you if we're fighting them together." Dipper objected, drawn into the conversation in spite of himself.

"Nuh-uh, partner, not sidekick." Mabel said firmly with a shake of her head.

"Alright, my crime fighting _partner_ then." Dipper corrected himself.

"Well ok, I'm going to be your partner – but I'm also your girlfriend, right? So obviously they wouldn't be able to resist kidnapping me. That's just the kind of dastardly stuff those weirdos go for." Mabel said.

Dipper froze, completely at a loss for words for once in his life. It had been a few weeks since the twins very interesting study session and they had fallen into a sort of relationship... but neither of them had ever really defined it in words. Privately Dipper had been agonizing over what exactly they were to each other and in his absentmindedness he ended up saying:

"Oh... I guess you kind of are my girlfriend, aren't you?" _Oh wow that was a __really__ stupid thing for me to say wasn't it?_

A small frown creased Mabel's brow and she drew back from her brother, "You _guess_ I am?" she said. Dipper could hear a very dangerous note in her voice.

Crap! What do I do? "Um... okay, that didn't come out how it sounded... I mean, it didn't sound how I meant.. I mean... I hadn't _thought_ of you as a girlfriend till just right now-"

"So what, did you think all those times that we've made out has just been me falling over and you catching me with your lips or something?" Mabel snapped.

"No- I meant that I wasn't really sure what all _this_ was." Dipper said hesitantly.

There was a wet shine in Mabel's eyes and her shoulders drooped slightly. She looked ready to run and braced for bad news at the same time and it tore Dippers heart to see those feelings playing across her face.

"Well what did you think it was?" she asked, a slight tremor in her tone. "Did you think it was a mistake or something?"

"No! Definitely not – not even a little bit." Dipper said quickly, his hand darting out to give Mabel's a quick squeeze... to his relief he felt her hand give his a small squeeze in return.

"Well, then what were you thinking... you know, about us?" Mabel asked him.

_Okay – how do I tell her... let her know how I feel without... damn it Pines, just go for it!_

"What I mean is... when I think of girlfriends... I think of how I was when I was a kid trying to get Wendy's attention. I think of being sweaty and awkward... of being uncomfortable as hell and just trying to act like a totally different person just to get someone who is essentially a stranger to notice me... but I don't feel that way around you. I mean... when I'm with you I don't have to act like someone else or try to be cool-"

"Yeah, that ship sailed a long time ago," Mabel said, the faint hint of a smile starting to form on the corners of her mouth as she heard Dippers halting explanation.

"Shut up... well... when I'm with you I feel good and happy... I feel comfortable and safe & I feel just lucky as hell." Dipper finished, his voice trailing off as his explanation began to lose steam. "I guess what I'm saying is that I always thought of you as Mabel, and that always meant a lot more to me than the idea of just a girlfriend."

Mabel stifled a sniffle and turned to Dipper with her eyes shining happily and then her arm shot out to give him a quick and surprisingly painful punch in the shoulder. "You are such a cornball." she said.

Before the objection that was rising in Dippers throat could be voiced he felt himself being grabbed by the lapels of his jacket and pulled hard into a kiss that left his brain temporarily melted into a cheerful puddle.

"Have I mentioned that I really like that side of you?" Mabel continued after she broke the kiss and leaned herself into his chest, nestling her head under his chin with a happy sigh.

"Thanks." Dipper replied, still at a loss for words and enjoying the feeling of Mabel's warm weight in his arms as they lay back together against the arm of the couch.

"You are totally my boyfriend though, right?" Mabel asked as she gave Dipper a quick poke in the ribs.

"Definitely." Dipper replied, leaning his head down to plant a quick kiss on the top of Mabel's head. _It actually feels really good to say that out loud... like I'm taking a big heavy weight off my chest._

"Good," Mabel said with a nod, "so now that we've got that out of the way we need to start thinking about the important stuff- picking out a good catchphrase for your new super-hero alter ego."

"Do I have to have a catchphrase?" Dipper objected, "Its so cheesy."

"C'mon, clearly you aren't going to strike fear into the hearts of criminals with the costume I made so you gotta have a good line at least." Mabel said.

"Okay, just to be one-hundred-percent clear – you aren't _serious_ about the whole super-hero crime fighting team thing, right?" Dipper asked.

"Of course not- though that does sound like a really awesome way to end up spending the night in County jail... I actually just wanted to see if I could get you to wear this little bear cape that I made." Mabel said.

"So everything about the constellations and bear powers?"

"All part of my devious plot to make you look adorable." Mabel said.

"You really put a lot of work into these little schemes of yours don't you?" Dipper asked with just a hint of admiration in his voice.

"If something is important to you then you need to go for it 100%," Mabel said, "and I can't think of anything more important than putting silly hats on you."

"That might explain the '_D_' you got on your last math test." Dipper joked.

"Its not my fault my tutor was more interested in smooching with me than in teaching me factoring." Mabel said accusingly, but with a playful arch to her eyebrow.

"Okay, so maybe teaching isn't really my strong suite," Dipper said, feeling his ears redden slightly.

"Yeah, you're pretty butts at teaching," Mabel agreed with a nod, "You are a really good smoocher though." Mabel added with a wink.

"Oh really?" Dipper asked with a pleased note in his voice.

"Yep, ten out of ten- would smooch again. Five stars in _Smoochers Weekly_." Mabel continued.

"Well, we have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves... would you maybe want to do more of that?" Dipper asked with a hopeful note in his voice.

"That depends – would you be wearing the bear cape?" Mabel asked, raising the bizarre garment up in her free hand and dangling it in front of her brothers face.

"Must I?" Dipper asked flatly.

"What do you think?" Mabel said in her most innocent tone.

Dipper sighed and snatched the silly black hood from her hand, but inwardly he was smiling at the sight of the gleeful grin that split Mabel's face as he lowered the hood over his eyes and did his best impression of the Batman scowl. In front of pretty much anyone else he'd rather eat broken glass than wear something so ridiculous, but he was always willing to go the extra mile to bring a smile to Mabel's face... and the fact that she was now leaning in towards him to press those soft smiling lips of hers against his certainly didn't hurt the situation at all either.


	4. Chapter 4

Dinner had been finished not too long ago and Dippers parents had settled in for an evening of television downstairs, leaving the twins free to continue their current attempt at trying to get Mabel prepared for her latest upcoming math test up in her room. Mabel was sprawled lazily across her bed with the textbook spread open in front of her and a look of intense concentration on her face while Dipper was sitting at her small work desk checking over some of the sample questions she had just finished. It was really more of an arts and crafts table than a desk to tell the truth, and Dipper found bits of glitter and old stickers latching onto his sleeves like barnacles as he leaned over the desktop and scratched a few notes and corrections onto the page.

"Done," he announced once he'd finished checking over the last problem.

"Alright… so… um… how did I do this time? Be brutal here- no sugarcoating." Mabel said, turning to him with a stern look on her face, ready for anything.

"Mabel, asking for _less _sugar? Are you sure you haven't been replaced by some sort of pod person while I wasn't looking?" Dipper asked in mock surprise.

"Quit stalling and just spill it already… did I even get any of them right this time?" Mabel asked as she absentmindedly slipped a lock of hair into her mouth and started chewing it nervously.

"Well, you definitely did a lot better than when we started out… you actually got almost all of them correct, even if I'm not really sure how you still solved number four using a completely wrong formula." Dipper replied.

"Wait- I got most of them right?" Mabel said with a note of surprised glee in her voice.

"Yep, 8 out 10 – thats solid 'B' territory." Dipper said with a note of pride in his voice.

"Yes! I'm a mathemagical genius!" Mabel exclaimed, pumping her fists wildly in the air with a big grin splitting her face.

"I'll call up the Nobel prize people and tell them to start polishing up your future medallion." Dipper said dryly. Inwardly he was enjoying the sight of her smile, his eyes drawn to the soft curve of her lips with distracting frequency.

"A '_B_' though? I don't think I've gotten one of those in this class since the start of the semester – I had to bust my butt to just get it up to a '_D_' before!" Mabel said with a note of barely suppressed giddiness in her voice, pointedly ignoring her brothers sarcasm.

"I told you that you could get this stuff… I mean, its just numbers – all you need to do is figure out how to put them together and the problems pretty much solve themselves." Dipper said.

"Well yeah, I'm sure they do if you've got some sort of weird computer brain but normal humans sometimes have a few problems with that kind of stuff." Mabel replied with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"I think the last thing I'd ever call you is normal." Dipper said with a teasing grin.

"Good one buttface," Mabel shot back as she childishly stuck her tongue out at him.

"Maybe that one was a bit buttface-y yeah," Dipper concedes. He's always teased her and she's always teased him back, but sometimes he wonders just how much teasing is okay now that they are… well, whatever it is they are. She's still his sister, nothing would ever change that, but at the same time he knows she's much more to him than just that. Mabel had declared them to be boyfriend and girlfriend, simple as that, and though Dipper felt that summed it up pretty well most of the time there were days when the unconventional nature of their situation would throw him through a loop. He didn't regret the turn of events that brought him here, he never has, but in the privacy of his own mind he still feels uneasy at times since it all seems so fragile.

Still, even with his occasional doubts Dipper knows that whatever this odd relationship is he's been very happy finding himself involved in it.

"Well, buttface or not you really helped me out a lot here with all this tutoring we've been doing… thanks for putting in all that extra time here with me. I know it can't have been too much fun going over this stuff again and again." Mabel replied with a soft note in her voice. Just the sound of that strangely gentle tone in her voice is enough to send a little flutter of butterflies in his gut, but he does his best to ignore them.

"Don't mention it… Anyway it wasn't really much trouble – you picked up on this stuff pretty quick when we actually concentrated on going over the material and weren't… you know… distracting each other," Dipper said, his ears going beet red as his sentence trailed off.

"Heh… yeah I guess we didn't really get too much actual studying done last time," Mabel agreed with a slight blush coming to her own cheeks.

"Or the time before that… honestly I think that I might develop some weird fixation on math problems if we keep mixing these two activities together like that." Dipper joked.

"Well we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Mabel replied, "Though you gotta admit that it would be hilarious if me whispering sweet nothings about fractions or whatever in your ear would get you all frazzled. You'd probably never be able to focus in math class again."

"To be totally honest I've been having sort of a hard time focusing in most of my classes lately anyway, not just math." Dipper said somewhat sheepishly.

"Oh really now?" Mabel asked playfully, scooting her way along the bed until she and Dipper were facing each other directly. He could feel her bare knee brush against his as she leaned forward, putting her face close to his and raising an eyebrow at him in a questioning manner, "Why do you suppose that could be Dip?"

"Well I've been seeing this girl lately and she's been on my mind a lot," Dipper said breezily, trying to sound more calm and casual than he actually felt… truth be told his palms were starting to get sweaty and he could feel his heart begin to thump a bit harder than normal when he noticed the frisky expression that was starting to make its way onto Mabel's face.

"Well I think since I did so well on this last practice quiz that we're both entitled to a little break," Mabel said cheerfully, "so how about you come on up here and tell me all about your new lady friend?" she continued, patting the empty space next to her on the bed invitingly.

Dipper swallowed the fluttering nervousness that he always felt whenever this peculiar tension started building between them and joined his sister on her small bed with its overly soft mattress and unruly zoo of stuffed animals scattered across it, trying not to seem overly eager in his movements. He didn't have to worry too much on that account since Mabel was clearly just as interested as he was – no sooner had he taken a seat than she had scooted along closer until she was leaning up against his side, sliding her arm out around his waist. Dippers own arm slid out automatically around her side to pull her in close, still marveling at the new sensation of feeling her pressed close to him like this… warm and soft and fitting perfectly nestled right against him like they were matching puzzle pieces.

"So, whats this girl like? Give me some details man!" Mabel said playfully with a sparkle in her warm brown eyes.

"Well she's incredibly cute, though between you and me she can be a little silly sometimes." Dipper replied, his earlier nervousness starting to fade away in place of a sort of joyful anticipation.

"Silly you say? I wouldn't think that a serious guy like you would go for the silly type." Mabel teased in a soft voice, leaning up close to him to trace her lips in a feather light trail up the side of his neck and toward his ear in a way that was both ticklish and incredibly exciting at the same time.

"I'd say she was definitely my type," Dipper replied equally softly, stroking his hand down Mabel's cheek and tilting her head up to face him. Their eyes lock and for a moment he's just frozen by the intensity in her look – its only for a second, but it feels so much longer to the teens hormone addled brain.

"So are you going to stare at me some more or are you going to kiss me?" Mabel teased, a blush coming to her cheek when she saw an expression of intensity in her brothers eyes that mirrored her own.

His answer is immediate and definite, sliding his arm up around her back and behind her head to gently pull her face to his as he leans in to her. Their lips meet and part immediately, no hesitation in this kiss… it isn't their first kiss or their second or even tenth but even so it still feels just as exciting to the both of them as if they had never done anything like this before. She's wiggling up against him now as her hands roam up his back to knock his cap off his head and tangle her fingers in his hair. Dipper feels an unconscious shiver travel down his spine as she gently traces her brightly painted nails along the back of his neck. His own hands are hesitantly traveling up along Mabel's side, sliding up the small of her back before coming to lightly rest on a small round breast – she gives a little hum of approval into Dippers mouth and his touch becomes more firm and confident. Distracted as he is, Dipper is taken completely by surprise when Mabel's hands slide up to his shoulders to push him down onto the bed with gentle force, and she climbs up onto his lap to pin him back completely with a triumphant grin on her face. She doesn't feel particularly heavy resting on top of him and Dipper is sure that he could probably easily throw Mabel off if he wanted to, but right now nothing could be further from his mind.

A faint sound echoes up the staircase and Dipper shoots a quick nervous glance at the door, but Mabel catches his eyes and bends down over him with a mischievous grin on her face to bring her lips close to his ears. He feels a small shiver travel down his spine when she speaks, her hot breath in his ear feeling almost unbearably nice;

"Relax Dip, the door has been locked the whole time… plus we are doing very important studying time here so no one is going to interrupt – my academic future depends on it." she says, her voice playful but with a husky note that he's still not used to hearing. She nips his earlobe gently after she finishes the sentence.

"Right. Studying." Dipper replies in a dazed voice, his mind a happy blur from the feel of Mabel's warm weight resting lightly on top of him and the scent of her tumble of jasmine scented curls so close to his face.

"So, since we're done with the math for right now," Mabel continued in a teasing tone, "how about we brush up on our makeout-ology?"

"I'm pretty sure that isn't a class – its probably more like a sport." Dipper replied, his brain finally having emerged from the happy pink clouds that it had been drifting through a moment ago.

"That can't be- you're actually really good at it." Mabel joked.

"Ouch, that one stung a bit." Dipper said, wincing as if he'd just taken a hit. _Though the fact that she thinks I'm good at it is certainly nice to hear._

"Okay, that one was a bit mean… and I guess you're actually right about its sportiness – we do usually get kind of out of breath and sweaty by the time we're finished," Mabel conceded playfully.

She looks like she's about to crack another joke but Dipper doesn't give her the chance, quickly propping himself up on his elbows to bring his lips to hers again for another kiss instead. Mabel doesn't seem to mind the interruption at all judging by the way that she hums and purrs happily into his mouth, her tongue sliding gently against his as his hands stroke across her back and through her hair. She bites down on her lower lip to stifle a moan after Dipper breaks their kiss and instead plants his lips firmly against the soft skin at the crook of her neck and shoulder, a weak spot of hers that he had discovered not too long ago and now liked to tease at every available opportunity. The weirdly ticklish sensation is almost too much to handle as it sends Mabel wriggling around happily and she ends up unconsciously rocking her hips against Dippers and he feels his own buck up to meet her. A jolt of feeling suddenly shoots through the both of them at that moment, causing the twins to freeze up simultaneously. They pull back slightly, each breathing hard and red in the face… this is unfamiliar territory. They've kissed plenty, and done more than kissed, but they still haven't started anything this physically intense before… even fully dressed as they are its a bit much for them to process.

They don't say a word, but Mabel gently slides herself off of Dipper and he rises up to a sitting position and takes a deep calming breath. Neither of them speak and the silence stretching between them has a brittle uncomfortable quality to it.

"Should we get back to the math maybe?" Dipper asks hesitantly. In his own mind he would much rather return to what they were just doing a few moments ago, but he forcefully quiets the hormones roaring in his brain when he sees the uncertain look in Mabel's eye.

"Yeah, that might be a good idea." Mabel replied, reaching for her discarded text book and absentmindedly flipping back to the chapter she'd been going over earlier. Her face now seems calm, if a bit pinker in the cheeks than normal, but Dipper notices that her hands are trembling slightly as she skims through the pages with unseeing eyes.

"Hey… um… is everything okay?" he asks, reaching out a reassuring hand to place on Mabel's shoulder. He's worried that he's done something wrong, but she doesn't flinch away from his gesture and when he gives her a gentle squeeze she gives him a small smile in return that seems uncharacteristically shy for Mabel.

"Yeah, its cool… nothing wrong or anything," she says. Her eyes drop back to the book but he knows that she's not really paying attention to it since its upside down and on the wrong chapter entirely.

Dipper doesn't say anything, giving Mabel time to sort through her thoughts, and sure enough she glances back up at him just moments later and says, "Um… I guess its just that I was a bit embarrassed about, you know – getting a little too… I just don't want us to go really fast with that stuff… well, I mean I actually kind of _do_ want to… but you know its not… blargh – never mind. Ignore everything I just said."

"Sure, no problem Mabel – all forgotten." Dipper replied quickly. He's feeling a little knot of nervousness in his gut just hearing Mabel talk about that kind of stuff, even if its in an incredibly roundabout way, and he has no real idea how to react in this situation. "We don't have to go… um… fast or whatever. I mean, unless you wanted to but you said you don't so its cool. Totally cool. Yeah."

"I thought you said it was forgotten?" Mabel asked accusingly, but there was no real anger in her voice – she just has a little bit of nervous awkwardness underneath her usual playful tone.

"Well I remembered it again, but this time I promise to forget. No more talking about this stuff until… I don't know, whenever you want to talk about it." Dipper said, finishing up his sentence with a cartoonish zipping up his lips gesture.

"Well its not like I don't ever think about… you know… _it. _The thing… naked bouncy kind of stuff…" Mabel said, her voice trailing off quietly.

"You can just say sex you know – we aren't little kids anymore and its not like we didn't do a whole chapter on it in that Health class we shared last year. I believe you actually got in '_A' _in that section if I recall correctly." Dipper replied jokingly.

"I kind of had a head start on you in that class – Grunkle Stan had already explained pretty much all that stuff to me a few years back." Mabel said sheepishly.

"Wait, _you_ got 'The Talk' from _Stan_?" Dipper asked incredulously.

"Well he thought I was you at the time – it was during that day when we switched bodies." Mabel explained.

"Oh yeah I remember that… oh wow, I must have really dodged a bullet there didn't I?" Dipper said.

"You have no idea… he did these little hand gestures and.. ugh… okay, next time I feel myself getting too frisky I'll just think about that. Instant mood kill." Mabel joked.

"Yeah, that sounds like a pretty foolproof plan there." Dipper agreed. "Though… I mean, we could just maybe talk about that stuff… you know, figure it out before we get too deep into anything. That seems like a mature way to handle things." he added hesitantly.

"What, are you saying that I'm not being mature?" Mabel asked.

"You did just refer to it as 'naked bouncy stuff'." Dipper replied.

"Okay, maybe calling it 'naked bouncy stuff' _was_ a little immature." Mabel conceded, the tension in her shoulders loosening at the friendliness of Dippers expression.

"Just a tiny bit yeah." Dipper said with a smile.

"Well… I don't know, I don't like being put on the spot. What do _you _think about it?" Mabel asked.

"About naked bouncy stuff?"

"You aren't going to let that go are you?" Mabel said with a pout.

"Sorry, that was the last time – I promise," Dipper said raising his hands in mock surrender. He paused to gather his thoughts and felt his ears redden up a few more shades as he seriously considered the question. _What _do _I think? That's actually a really good question… I mean, its not like I haven't _thought _about this stuff… a lot. Especially lately now that things have gotten more… touchy… between us. Its just not that simple though… I mean, even if we weren't… us… it still probably wouldn't be simple. What do I say? _

"Yeah, I can see how talking about it is really taking a big step here – I'm practically drowning in a sea of words," Mabel said with a nervous chuckle at the silent look of slightly embarrassed confusion on Dippers face.

"Hey, that's unfair – I was just taking a little time to get my thoughts together," Dipper said defensively.

"Sorry… take as long as you want… I really do want to hear what you think about this stuff. I've just kind of been circling around in my own head about this junk for a while and its sort of been getting to me." Mabel said somewhat shyly.

"Yeah, its been like that with me to." Dipper admitted.

"Really? I practically had to paint a landing strip on my shirt to get you to second base the first time." Mabel joked.

"I hesitate! Its not like I don't _want _to do things with you but this is all sort of new ground here for me… I mean, I'm not really sure when its alright to do some things or when we've gone to far or whatever – possibly because we don't ever talk about it." Dipper protested.

"And possibly because you're a little awkward." Mabel said with a nod.

"Yeah, that could also be a factor." he said.

"Well I guess its not like I'm being super non-awkward about this stuff myself here… I mean… I _want_ to do… stuff… with you… but-" Mabel began.

"Stuff?" Dipper interrupted.

"Argh… fine! I really want to jump your stupid dorky bones – happy now?" Mabel said exasperatedly, dropping flat back onto her bed and grabbing a fluffy purple cat from her pile of stuffed animals to jam over her reddening face.

"If I said yes would you hit me with that cat?" Dipper joked, feeling his mouth go dry as his mind fully took in what his ears just heard. _Oh wow she really wants to… um… dang._

The toy flew through the air and bounced off of Dippers head in response, though it wasn't thrown terribly hard. He caught Mabel's eyes with his own and gave her a small smile and she smiled back at him and just like that the tension of the moment was broken, sending the two into a fit of laughter. Dipper flopped back down on the bed and Mabel rolled up beside him to rest her head on his skinny chest, still chuckling quietly to herself as he pulled his arm out around her to give her an affectionate squeeze.

"Well, I guess that cat is out of the bag." Mabel said with a sigh as she nestled herself in a little closer to Dipper.

"Yeah… so the question is what what are we going to do now?" Dipper replied, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

"Well there isn't going to be any naked bouncy stuff tonight, that's for sure." Mabel said in an exaggeratedly authoritative voice.

"I figured as much," Dipper said dryly, "but I can't deny that the fact that it sounds like a future possibility is something that interests me quite a lot."

"Me too." Mabel agreed.

"Do you feel a little better?" Dipper asked.

"Actually I kind of do… just letting some of that out of my head does feel pretty good." Mabel said with a small smile.

"Glad to hear it," Dipper said, "So um… should we maybe figure out a few things for that particular future possibility? You know, places or times or…"

"Oh no – I'm not going to let you turn this into one of your crazy 48-point-checklist situations!" Mabel objected.

"Whats wrong with doing a little thinking?" Dipper protested.

"Nothing is wrong with a _little_ thinking, but you sir get _obsessive_. Anyway everyone only ever gets one first time and I'd want it to be special… you know, romantic and stuff. Planning out a day and time and junk like that just sounds kind of gross- like we're setting up a dentist appointment." Mabel said.

"Well alright, I guess I can see that." Dipper said.

"Thank you."

"In that case what do you usually picture… you know, situation-wise?" Dipper asked.

"I don't know – romantic stuff? Just the two of us somewhere like a beautiful beach or by a pretty waterfall or in a haunted house or something." Mabel said.

"A haunted house?" Dipper asked in slight confusion.

"Okay maybe that one doesn't sound really _romantic_ but it keeps popping up in my head for some reason." Mabel admitted.

"Huh… well that might be something I should keep in mind around next Halloween." Dipper joked.

"Oh shut up," Mabel laughed.

Dipper grinned and pulled Mabel to him for a soft slow kiss which she returned happily. One kiss quickly became two, which turned into three and before long they were lost in a happy haze together, all thoughts of their earlier conversation temporarily put aside.

"I love you Mabel," Dipper said during a brief pause in their distraction.

"Love you too Dip," Mabel said with a happy grin on her face.

"We'll figure this stuff out… when it feels right it'll happen, so lets not stress ourselves out about it for right now." Dipper said.

"Agreed," Mabel said cheerfully, pulling his face to hers for another kiss that sent his head spinning, wiggling herself in tight against him to mold her body against his. "Of course," Mabel said in a slightly breathless voice, "now that we've been talking about it I'm thinking that doesn't mean that we still can't do some _other _stuff right now…. you know, till we're really ready for the full deal."

"Such as?" Dipper asked as his heart began to hammer away in his chest at the look in his girlfriends eyes.

"Lets figure that out together," Mabel said with a grin as she wrapped her arms around Dippers neck to pull him in for a searing kiss.

_Oh I definitely think I'm going to end up with a serious THING about studying, _Dipper thought hazily before he started to lose himself in the moment with Mabel.


	5. Chapter 5

Its 3 AM on a Tuesday, and Mabel knows that she should have gone to sleep hours ago. Its already so late though that she doesn't really care that much - all chances of having a non-sucky morning have long since vanished at this point so what's a few more minutes of staying awake in the grand scheme of things? Its not like she's that much of a morning person even when she does manage to get her full 8 hours of sleep anyway.

She tosses and turns around in her bed, more out of boredom than from any misplaced hope of suddenly being able to find some magical arrangement of blankets and pillows that will send her instantly to dreamland. The attempt is just as hopeless as she figured it would be and Mabel stops after only a few minutes and returns to her original position, her back tucked up against the wall and her eyes facing her bedroom door, its round brass knob gleaming dully in the moonlight thats filtering in through her window. She knows its completely crazy, but she can't help but think that it looks like its taunting her.

_Come on over and open me, _it seems to say to Mabel's sleep deprived brain, _your boyfriend is right down the hall and you know that he probably wouldn't mind a late night visit._

Mabel frowns and shakes her head quickly, trying to dislodge the imaginary voice like a troublesome bug buzzing around her ear. She knows that doorknobs don't actually talk and she is also pretty certain that Dipper probably _would _mind a sudden 3 AM visit on a school night.

_Well, its not the really school night part he'd mind, _Mabel corrects herself, _more like the fact that I'd be suddenly visiting him in the middle of the night about 20 feet away from the master bedroom where our parents are sleeping. _

Sometimes Mabel really envies other girls her age who don't have to deal with the temptation of living right across the hall from their boyfriends.

_At least if he lived in another house he wouldn't seem so _frustratingly _close but far away at the same time, _she thought to herself.

Its not really a constant problem, but Mabel has to admit that this particular concern has started to weigh more and more heavily on her mind in the past few weeks and on nights like tonight she thinks that she's going to go absolutely crazy because of it.

Its not that things are going badly between her and Dipper – in fact they seem to be getting better every day. The two get along just as well as they ever have... sibling mockery, barrels of in-jokes, plentiful sarcasm and relaxing periods of goofing off feature pretty heavily in their daily routine when they are around one another but now there is also a new emotional current of love and desire running underneath their old affection that feels both raw and soothing at the same time. Its one of the most terrifying things on earth to open yourself up completely to another person, but when things go right it can also be one of the most beautiful and lately Mabel's been feeling absolutely delighted from that special connection that has grown between them. She thinks back to how she had felt just a few months ago- so wound up and filled with mixed and confused feelings about her secret dreams and wishes and thoughts only to find against all odds that not only were they coming true but that it was even better than she had imagined. No, as far as mental or emotional stuff goes life is better than ever for Mabel... its where the physical stuff comes in that life has become just a bit _frustrating_ for her. Not really _bad._ Just frustrating.

Almost a month has passed since she and Dipper had 'The Talk' with each other during one of their more _eventful _study dates and Mabel has never felt more free. All the worry and... well, not _shame _exactly... but trepidation that she had been feeling about the looming physical side of their relationship has been replaced by her enjoyment of this new and extremely fun period of exploration that the two have entered into. They still haven't really gone the _full _way, but that hasn't stopped them from finding lots of different ways to enjoy themselves in the meanwhile. The blankets around her seem to grow far too warm all of a sudden as Mabel's mind drifts to certain specific memories - the feel of Dippers hand sliding slowly up her inner thigh, hesitantly at first but with a touch that was excitingly nothing like her own... his lips grazing wetly down her neck and trailing slowly around the gentle slope of her breasts... her own hand slipping down the waistband of his pants and gripping him for the first time – she grinned hugely to herself at the memory of his wide-eyed and adorably red face when she had done it while he had been in the middle of trying to lecture her about functions or imaginary numbers or something boring like that. Mabel had joked at the time that she seemed to have found Dippers control switch but he'd been too distracted by the feel of her soft palm caressing him to respond with anything close to his usual cleverness and she had amused herself for quite a while observing his expressions and the hilarious noises he'd made when she played with him. She hadn't really known until that moment that something could be both goofy yet somehow also incredibly hot at the same time.

A surge of heat bloomed up suddenly just below Mabel's navel when she remembered how Dipper had gotten his revenge for her teasing the next day, backing her up against the door to her room with uncharacteristic boldness and pinning her there with his surprisingly strong arms as he kissed his way along from her lips to her neck and then further down her body than he had ever dared to go before. Their parents had been out of the house running errands at the time, so Mabel had been anticipating the two of them would be doing some "studying" that day and had her computer set up to play a little music to drown out any noise that she thought they might end up making just in case anyone came home early. When Dipper had suddenly knelt down and nuzzled his face up under her skirt Mabel had briefly worried that the music might not be nearly loud enough to disguise all the sounds that he started to coax out of her but before long she had stopped worrying about anything at all as her thoughts drifted apart from the waves of pleasure that had started pulsing through her. Mabel felt the heat inside her grow almost into a dull ache at the memory... half-way through that amazing moment, while one of her legs was thrown up over Dippers shoulder for balance and his mouth was exploring her most sensitive spots for the very first time, the online radio website she was using had decided to suddenly switch gears from its normal pop-music channel to her custom station of classic Disney movie songs on its own for no reason. Dipper had been too distracted to notice the change at the time, but Mabel vividly remembers having the most _intense _sensations she has ever experienced in her entire life come pouring through her body while her computers speakers blared out selections from the sound track of '_The Lion King'._ Her fingers had tangled roughly through Dippers hair in a white knuckled grip and her voice came out in a soft breathy scream just in time to accompany the high note of one of the songs. That was about a week ago and Mabel still can't think of that movie without feeling a flush of heat rising to her skin... or stop herself from grinning when she remembers how confused Dipper had looked when he had finally pulled his face out from between her shaking thighs and asked her why they were listening to '_Hakuna Matata_'.

Mabel had felt so good at the time that she wanted to drag Dipper to her bed right then and there so that she could finally have her way with him but then '_Can You Feel the Love Tonight' _had started playing next and the twins had both burst out laughing at just how ridiculously on the nose that situation was and their mood was temporarily broken. By the time they had recovered from their fit of giggles and gotten each other worked up again they had heard the crunch of tires on gravel in their driveway and reluctantly forced themselves to separate and actually start doing some of the homework that they were supposed to have been working on the whole time.

Since that day they haven't managed to find enough time or privacy to get to enjoy some more of what Mabel thinks of as their 'sex-periments' and the waiting is making her extremely... squirmy.

_Yeah, squirmy is a good way to put it, _she thinks to herself as she fidgets around in the bed, her breathing just a little too heavy for comfort thanks to her recent trip down memory lane.

She briefly considers taking matters into her own hands, as it were, but decides against it... it would feel good, just not nearly as good as it would feel if it were his hands doing the job and knowing that would just end up frustrating her more. All of her earlier worries about taking things too fast had dissolved pretty quickly the first time that Dipper had finally worked up the courage to start _touching_ her and he had managed to find a few spots which even she didn't know about that had turned her into a boneless puddle of ecstasy. Mabel had jokingly accused him of doing research afterwards and she could tell by the way he'd blushed and wouldn't quite meet her eyes that she had guessed correctly... not that she was complaining at all. If Dipper's nerdy obsessive studying habits led to more feelings as intense as those had been then Mabel was 100% on board with the idea.

_He's right down the hall... and you know that even if he _does_ get nervous that there is no way on earth that he would turn down an extremely... squirmy... Mabel suddenly appearing next to him in bed, _the doorknob whispers to her in a coaxing voice.

Mabel bites down hard on her pillow and quietly screams a frustrated little curse into it before throwing off her now sweltering blankets and lying flat on her back, ignoring that mocking jerkface of a doorknob.

It looked like it was going to be a long night.

* * *

Sleep came too late to do Mabel much good, but even though she only managed to snatch a few hours of rest that didn't stop the sun from rising nor the clock from ticking down the hours until her totally annoying alarm starting blaring five feet from her head. Before she really knew what was going on Mabel found herself sleepily dragging her body out of bed, into a quick and unsatisfying shower and then down the stairs for a nutritious and totally untasted breakfast. Her legs feel like some prankster has replaced them with bricks of lead and her eyes were burning from the lack of sleep, but she's not really worried... its not the first nearly sleepless night she's ever had, though it _is_ the first one that hasn't been caused by an overdose of candy.

"Are you feeling alright Mabel?" Dipper asks from across the breakfast table, seeming disgustingly cheerful despite how early it is.

_Or late it is for those of us who haven't gotten enough sleep, _Mabel thinks grumpily.

"Yes, I'm totally fine." she says somewhat more snappishly than she intended to, toying viciously with her bowl of cereal. Sleep deprived as she is Mabel thinks he somehow manages to look cute even at this ungodly hour, and that annoys her for some reason that she can't quite understand.

Her somewhat bitter tone is enough to send a look of concern flickering across Dippers face... he's used to Mabel being grumpy in the morning but he's not really sure how to handle the idea of his girlfriend being mad at him for no reason and his mind can't quite reconcile the two ideas as being the same situation at the moment. Mabel recognized that her grouchiness was freaking Dipper out just a little and she feels slightly guilty about it, but an idea suddenly crosses her mind that would both ease his worrying and give her a little fun at the same time.

"Why so grouchy all of a sudden?" Dipper asked, his voice filled with an honest concern that sent a happy little pulse through her core to hear.

"Well if you must know its totally your fault," Mabel replied with a haughty pout, her expression hard and her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

"What did I do?" Dipper asks in slightly panicked confusion. The little twinge of guilt she felt at seeing his discomfort earlier flares up again but she tamps it down since she's not _actually _mad at him... this is all just part of the fun. He'll understand later.

Mabel's eyes glance casually around the room, but she already knows that the house is empty – her parents had left for work almost a half hour ago and they wouldn't need to start making their way to the bus stop for another few minutes. Satisfied that they really were totally alone Mabel leans over across the table and puts her mouth tantalizingly close to Dippers ear, loving the way he shivers just from the feeling of her hot breath brushing across it.

"Oh, just that I couldn't sleep because I stayed up all night thinking about how much I wanted to screw your big nerdy brains out." Mabel whispers. She realizes that she's feeling a lot bolder than usual after her restless night since normally she can't even _think_ words like 'screw' without blushing a little bit.

Dipper jerks slightly in surprise and Mabel winces at hearing a sound that must have been his knee slamming forcefully against one of the solid wooden table legs. She fights hard to suppress her grin at seeing the adorable stunned expression he has on his face. He's as red as a tomato and looking at her with his mouth hanging just slightly open and she's fairly certain that he probably hasn't even noticed how hard he must have bumped his leg.

Mabel suddenly pops up out from her chair, feeling freshly revitalized by her (totally true) little confession.

"C'mon Dip, grab your stuff so we can go – you don't want to miss the bus do you?" Mabel asks innocently as she grabs the eye-achingly bright pink backpack leaning up against her chair and starts making her way toward the door.

"Um, give me a minute," Dipper says somewhat abashedly, "I just need to sit down for a little bit... my.. um... my knee hurts."

"Oh, okay," Mabel says as she leans casually up against the doorway. "You know, I can think of a good way to help with the swelling in your... 'knee'."

"Really?" Dipper asks, his voice just a little shaky but with that slightly intrigued tone that she's come to recognize and enjoy hearing.

"Yup... just picture Grunkle Stan naked – that should get it cleared up pretty quickly." Mabel says with a wide grin.

Dipper groans as if in pain and drops his head down flat on the surface of the table dramatically.

"Yeah, that definitely did it for the swelling. Possibly forever." he mutters from the little cave created by his own arms curling around his head.

"Well, hopefully not _forever_-forever," Mabel said, "I may have some plans that would require some swelling in the very near future."

"Is this another prank?" Dipper asks cautiously, his head peeking up slightly to catch Mabel's eyes.

"C'mon, that wasn't really a prank Dippingsauce – when Mabel pranks you for realsies you will _know_." Mabel said with a teasing smirk.

"Yeah, I can recall some of them from the past. Hilarious stuff- totally not completely painful or humiliating in any way." Dipper said in deadpan voice.

"I didn't _know_ that there had been a possum nesting in that shed when I locked you in!" Mabel said in a contrite tone, "Honestly, that one didn't go anything like I had planned."

"At least I got some nice scars out of the deal." Dipper griped jokingly.

"Oh yeah, totally manly ones too... shirtless Dipper got like, 30% hotter once the stitches came out." Mabel teased.

"Whats that – you're using math in your day to day life now? Someone alert the media, the impossible has happened!" Dipper said sarcastically.

"Stay home with me today." Mabel blurted out suddenly, all of the earlier bantering tone gone from her voice.

_Okay brain, where did that come from? _Mabel thought to herself. She felt a blush rise to her cheeks as the words hung there in the air but she didn't back down from them.

"Come again?" Dipper asked, his mind suddenly violently derailed from the little list of verbal jabs that he'd been mentally composing to use against Mabel during the bus ride up to school.

"I really wasn't messing with you earlier when I said the thing about staying up all night." Mabel replied, honesty making her suddenly feel oddly shy.

"Wait, you actually _did_ stay up late thinking about-" Dipper began.

"-naked bouncy stuff." Mabel finished, her mouth turning up at the corners with a small smile. The clumsy phrase had become a private joke between them and she saw his mouth twitch up in a smile to match hers at hearing it.

"Oh... wow." Dipper said. "So you want us to call in sick today so that we can-"

"Yes, so that you can help me with my 'math homework'." Mabel said jokingly, making finger-quotes as she said it.

"Okay, you really have to stop calling it that – there isn't even anyone here to overhear us." Dipper said with a roll of his eyes.

"Gotcha – no more contributing to Dippers twisted math fetish." Mabel said.

Dipper gave an exaggerated sigh but he grinned at her from under his false glower. He still wasn't really sure how Mabel could be annoying, adorable & somehow _painfully_ sexy at the same time... it was one of those mysteries that he was pretty sure that he would never find a solution to but he definitely didn't mind being on the receiving end of her weird charm.

"Well, what do you think? I mean, I'd probably end up sleeping through a lot of my classes today anyway since I really am kind of tired and your GPA is high enough that you can afford to miss a day and not have it really hurt your grades." Mabel said.

"That's... that's actually a really good point." Dipper said as he thought it over for a second.

"Plus, there's the fact that I've missed you," Mabel said as she walked slowly from the dining room door over to Dipper's place by the table and stood up on tip-toe to brush her lips softly against the corner of his mouth, "We haven't really had any quality boyfriend-girlfriend alone time in like, a jillion years."

"It's just been 6 days." Dipper replied.

"Aha! I see that someones been counting." Mabel said with a teasing grin.

"No I haven't... okay, yeah I guess I kind of have. It really has been way too long," Dipper said as he wrapped an arm out around Mabel's waist and pulled her in closer to him for a deeper kiss. He was suddenly thinking back to that last bit of quality time that they had shared... particularly on the weirdly enjoyable sting of Mabel's fingers twining tightly through his hair and the feel of her warm thigh resting on his shoulder... the smooth creamy skin of her leg brushing up against his cheek and ear as he took his first taste of her. His earlier joking fears about swelling quickly proved to be false as the combination of memory and Mabel's soft lips melting against his own worked their magic.

Mabel broke the kiss, her eyes gleaming with a sparkle of mischief as they met Dipper's. She could feel the effect she was having on him and as always it sent a little thrill through her, knowing that she could get him going so quickly.

"I'll leave it to you to iron out the details with the school office then," Mabel said imperiously with a little dismissive wave of her hand.

"What do you think I should tell them?" Dipper asks, suddenly feeling a little nervous despite his arousal. Partly its because he's never really played hooky before, but mostly because he's starting to realize that _this _is all actually happening to him right now and that its going to be the first time since things have started getting _heated _between him and Mabel that they will be completely alone together for any real length of time.

"C'mon Dip, how many times have I made you watch '_Ferris Bueller'_ with me? I'm pretty sure you can work out how to call in sick." she said with a teasing smile.

"Fair enough," Dipper said with a shrug, pulling his phone out from his pocket to call up their school.

He manages to get through the call easily enough, despite the fact that Mabel takes the opportunity to run her hands distractingly down under his shirt and up across his chest while nipping a little on his ear. She had also briefly considered sliding her hands down under Dippers belt while he was in the middle of faking a terrible cough to the school secretary, but she's pretty sure that he might get a bit too annoyed with her and it would spoil the mood. He really can't take a joke too well - at least when it comes to the kinds of jokes that Mabel likes pulling on him.

"Well, it seems that we have the whole house to ourselves for about 8 hours or so," Mabel stated in a falsely innocent voice once her brother had finished the call, sliding herself out from Dipper's warm grip and casually pacing toward the direction of the stairs leading to her bedroom. "What do you think we should do?"

"I _might _have one or two ideas in that direction," Dipper said as a wolfish grin started to make its way onto his face, "Just as long as you promise to keep that weird Disney station off your playlist."

Mabel grinned at him in return, her mouth curled in an innocent smile but her eyes smoldering in a way that sent his already racing heart thumping just a little faster when he met her gaze.

"No worries." she said cheekily, beckoning him to follow her as she started making her way back to the stairs in a cheerful skipping gait.

Dipper groaned exasperatedly at the reference to the song, but that doesn't stop him from dropping his backpack on the dining room floor and jogging after her with a grin of his own.

* * *

Six days may not seem like a long time to wait for most things, but you would never have guessed that if you were to judge solely by the way Dipper and Mabel flung themselves at one another as soon as the latch of her bedroom door clicked shut. Mabel in particular felt a sense of relief flooding through her as soon as she pressed her lips to Dippers, thrilling at the feel of his hands sliding up under her shirt... after so long the simple touch of his fingers running across her bare skin felt almost electric and she hummed happily into his mouth as he clumsily tried to disconnect her bra. He was still pretty unpracticed at that particular task and she gave a frustrated little grunt before releasing her hold on his shirt to reach behind her back and do it herself. The floral printed garment tumbled down to the floor and Mabel's shirt soon joined it before she helped Dipper tug his own over his head and toss it aside. Mabel felt herself flush as she saw how his eyes roamed across her bared skin and her own eyes couldn't stop tracing over his own lines and angles... they'd both done a lot of growing in the years since they were skinny kids playing up in the attic of the Mystery Shack. She had noticed lately that Dipper had started to grow into a surprisingly broad pair of shoulders, even if he still was pretty thin. The faint lines of a few old scars still showed down by his ribs and Mabel traced her fingers slowly along them, enjoying the way his skin twitched at her touch.

She reached out and took Dippers hand in her own to lead him over to her bed, pulling him down next to her and loving the way their bodies seemed to mold against one another as they kissed and rolled across the soft mattress. Not content to simply be lead around Dipper soon rolled Mabel onto her back and held her hands flat against the surface of the bed as he brought his mouth down on the sensitive skin of her neck and down her chest. He released his grip on her arms as he slowly traced his way down her torso, taking a grip on her skirt and helping her wriggle and slide it off awkwardly as she lay on the bed. They had gotten started so quickly that Mabel hadn't even thought to turn on her online radio station so this time there was no chance of any weird musical interruption when Dipper kissed his way up her inner thigh with a series of frustratingly slow nips before bringing his mouth directly against her in a way that sent her fingers curling tightly into her plush comforter and her thighs clamping down onto the sides of his head. Mabel squirmed and rocked herself against him as he continued to work his mouth over her, her arms shooting out from her sides to dig their fingers sharply into his shoulders as she felt the tension in her singing nerves build up like a coiling spring. The tension didn't hold for long though, and all the pressure inside her burst at once as her back arched up off the bed and a breathy wail tore out from her throat, echoing loudly around the walls of her room. She flopped back bonelessly against her pile of pillows, panting as if she had just run a mile and blearily watching Dipper as he rose up from between her legs.

"Feeling good?" he asked, a small smirk on his face at the sight of Mabel's flushed cheeks and the stray curls of hair plastered across her forehead. He thought she looked beautiful in moments like this, though it had been a very rare sight for him to see.

"Mmmm, definitely," Mabel said as she snuggled herself up against the pillow pile, before giving him a hungry grin. "But you, sir, are way too overdressed for the occasion - what's with the pants?"

"Oh, yeah... guess I got a little distracted and forgot to take them off." Dipper said.

"Well we have a very strict dress code at this establishment - so I'm afraid I can't let you stay unless you correct it." Mabel said primly.

Dipper nodded with just a hint of redness in his ears as he unbuckled them and started to slip them off... he hadn't been naked around Mabel since they had gotten old enough to take separate baths and until a few minutes ago he'd not actually seen her naked in just as long. He'd caught flashes and glimpses of her bare skin when things had started getting heavy between them a few weeks ago, but he'd never seen all of her at once like this and he was still feeling a little thunderstruck by the sight.

"Have I mentioned that you're gorgeous?" he said suddenly.

"I'm already naked and raring to go Dip, you don't need to butter me up any more." Mabel said teasingly, but with a small flush of happiness rising to her cheeks at hearing the compliment.

"Thats not why I'm saying it though... I just don't think I mention it enough." Dipper said, suddenly feeling shy. He felt it was bizarre that he could still taste Mabel on his lips but watching her start to blush at a compliment was enough to make him feel as bashful as a kid in junior high asking a girl on a first date. _I probably have a few wires crossed wrong in my head._

"I still see pants on you," Mabel said admonishingly.

"Right, well here they go." Dipper said, tossing them aside and joining Mabel up in the bed, immediately pulling her to him for a kiss - partly just because he didn't want to wait for her to make some sort of joke about his nudity.

Mabel felt her pulse start to quicken again as she felt herself pressed up tightly against the still unfamiliar texture of Dippers bare skin, their legs tangling together and her arms twined around his neck as they kissed heatedly. She could feel him pressing down low between her legs and she experimentally bucked her hips against him, hissing suddenly at the little jolt of pleasure she felt from him grinding up against her. They rocked back and forth like this frantically for a few minutes, Mabel's heart pounding in her chest from just how good the contact felt but still wanting more. She pulled her lips from Dippers and she saw he had a slightly glazed look in his eyes, his breathing hard.

"Hey, remember what I'd said about wanting to wait?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice somewhat breathy from excitement.

"Lets not." Mabel said.

"Really?" Dipper asked.

"Really really." Mabel said.

"Are you totally sure you want to do this right now... I had thought you said you wanted the first time to be special, like in a haunted house or something like that," Dipper said hesitantly.

"Are you complaining?" Mabel asked with just a slight bite to her tone. Normally she found Dipper's questioning nature kind of endearing, but there was a time and a place for everything and this did _not_ feel like it.

"No! I'm definitely not complaining," he said with a slightly frantic hand gesture, "I just don't want you to... you know... feel let down or regret anything later. I really want you to feel like this is special." he trailed off quietly, feeling a little too open after that admission.

"The fact that you care that much about what I want and how I feel _is_ what makes it special," Mabel said in a quiet tone that matched his own._ Doing it in a haunted house **would **__have been pretty awesome but as long as Dippers here with me I guess it doesn't really matter where we are_.

They stayed silent for a few heartbeats, just looking at one another. His eyes were locked with hers, not looking away as he sometimes did when he felt vulnerable - something she knew she did as well. Mabel felt that warm surge in her heart pulse through her when she saw the expressions playing across his face... the familiar sight of happiness, nervousness & a definite current of excitement were there, but there was also a certain tenderness around his eyes that she noticed he only had when he was looking at her.

"Anyway, this is still way more romantic than if we were going to do it in the back seat of a car or in a deserted alley or the graveyard or whatever," Mabel said breezily as she recalled some of her friends own hushed tales of how their first times went.

"Definitely more comfortable for one thing." Dipper said with a smile as he leaned back up against Mabel's mountain of pillows. _Graveyard? I had thought the haunted house idea was weird enough..._

"Yup... and its not out in the open so we don't have to worry about a cop suddenly showing up and tapping on the window and we've got plenty of time so we don't have to rush..." Mabel continued, suddenly feeling a little flood of nervousness at the thought. She _wanted_ this... badly... but that still didn't stop that little flutter of butterflies in her stomach from going crazy at the thought of what they were about to do. It wasn't a bad kind of nervous though, more like a sort of excited anticipation... like Christmas morning but with _way_ more interesting presents to unwrap-

_Unwrap_, she thought to herself, recalling something important.

"Hey, wait right here for a second," Mabel said suddenly, wriggling her way out of Dippers warm grip and over to her closet as he looked at her in puzzlement. She threw open the closet doors and started digging through the colorful piles of clutter, eventually finding a small pig-shaped purse and taking it with her.

"Whats with the pig?" Dipper asked, confused.

"Well, I thought we would probably be needing these," Mabel said slightly shyly, digging around through the zippered pouch until he found what she had been looking for. Her hand emerged holding a foil wrapped condom and then placed it down on the little table beside her bed.

"Nice to see that you were um... prepared," Dipper said with a little nervous grin.

"Well, I did ace that sex ed class after all." Mabel joked.

Dipper smiled and reached down for his discarded pants, fished his wallet out of the pocket and opened it up to pull out a small foil wrapped package of his own which he placed next to hers on the table.

"I guess great minds think alike," he said with a hint of red showing in his ears.

"It seems they do... okay, you got to tell me how you got that because I can't imagine you buying a condom in a million years." Mabel said, curiosity temporarily overpowering her excitement.

"What? Why would you think that?" Dipper objected.

"Do you need me to spell it out? You get all sweaty and embarrassed if you just have to get a ticket to an R rated movie, so I can't even imagine what that shopping trip must have been like for you." Mabel said.

"Well clearly I did do it since I'm pretty sure I don't have the magical power to just summon birth control supplies at will." Dipper said sarcastically.

"Alright then, spill the details - how did it go?" Mabel asked.

"You want to do this right now? Are you seriously that curious?" Dipper asked, confused by the weird whiplash in moods.

"Yup, c'mon tell me the whole story." Mabel said, leaning back against the bed and rolling herself closer to Dipper.

"Alright... well you know that convenience store just outside the neighborhood?" he began.

"The really sketchy looking one that mom doesn't like to stop at?"

"Yeah that's the one... well it was a day after the whole '_Hakuna Matata_' incident and I started thinking that I didn't have any kind of... you know, supplies for when we finally... Anyway the gas station was the closest place that I could walk to that I thought might have some, but when I got there I saw that they were all behind the counter and the cashier that day was this really sweet grandmothery-looking older lady..."

"Oh my god I can almost picture it - can you pause the story while I make some popcorn?" Mabel teased.

"No and also shut up," Dipper said in a slightly grumpy tone.

"Sorry - I'll stop interrupting," Mabel said, propping her head up on one hand while making a 'go on' gesture to Dipper with her other.

"I don't even know why I'm telling you this," Dipper griped.

"Because you have a hard time saying no to me since you're in love with me," Mabel said simply.

"You don't have to sound so smug about it," Dipper said.

"Why shouldn't I feel smug about having an awesome boyfriend who loves me?" Mabel asked rhetorically.

"Yeah, I guess I am pretty great," Dipper replied.

"Definitely- now continue with your tale of humiliation. Were there any tears?" Mabel asked with a look of curious glee.

Dipper ignored the crack and continued his story.

"Anyway, I went in and I saw them there behind the counter in a glass case and that little old white haired cashier was just smiling at me and I got way too embarrassed and ended up walking around the inside of the entire store like, 3 times before going up empty handed to the counter. She started looking at me kind of suspiciously, like she thought I was going to rob the place and I ended up just walking out and heading home. I was halfway down the street to our house when I stopped and headed back and when I walked back in the cashier was looking at me even more suspiciously, but when I went over to the counter and just started staring at the condoms she got this look on her face like she _finally_ understood what I wanted and then she turned totally red too. I ended up just pointing at one of the packages and then she pulled it down, I passed her some money and the whole time neither of us were saying a word as she rings it up... we just mimed our way through the entire transaction."

"Comedy gold." Mabel declared with a little snort of laughter.

"I'm sure you were totally suave when you bought yours then?" Dipper asked sarcastically.

"Well, yeah of course... Okay, actually I kinda-sorta shoplifted mine from a pharmacy when I was hanging out with some friends after school and they were busy checking out the makeup section." Mabel said.

"I guess that's one way to get around the whole embarrassment problem." Dipper said.

"So, are we just gonna sit around talking forever or what?" Mabel asked.

"You're the one who asked-" Dipper started to object before Mabel pounced on him, silencing him with her lips and sliding herself on top of his body.

If Dipper had any objections to Mabel pinning him down he certainly didn't show them and she felt the breath catch in her throat when she squirmed against him and felt herself grazing up against him, his skin hot and pulsing. She sighed as she rocked her hips slowly against his, biting down gently on her lip and feeling that coil of heat start to grow below her navel again when she saw the wide eyed look in Dippers eyes. Mabel tried hard not to let her nervousness or the jackhammering of her heart overwhelm her as she reached across to the table and grabbed one of the little foil packages in trembling fingers, tearing it open and tossing the wrapper aside before handing it to Dipper. He slid it down over himself and gave her a small nod and she settled back down atop him before taking ahold of him, trying to angle her hips just right. It was clumsy, and each failed attempt had them both groaning in frustration until she felt him slide right up against her and then pressed down.

She'd heard from her friends that the first time always hurt, and it was true that it was kind of uncomfortable at first but the discomfort passed quickly as she experimentally wiggled her hips against his, shuddering at the weird amazing _full _feeling inside of her. This was it - this was what she'd been wanting with him for so long and now that it was actually happening it was _good. _Dippers hands reached out and took a firm hold on her hips, she could feel his pulse hammering hard just through the skin of his hands and he was looking at her like she had just transformed into something beautiful and strange. She shuddered as she started to rise an fall on him, her thighs burning with the effort of moving but not caring at all as each movement sent whole new jolts of pleasure into that little pit in her belly, building it up like coals being piled onto a fire. Her eyes locked on Dippers as he slid a hand up from her hip and against her side, resting his palm against her cheek and she nuzzled into it, loving the feel and smell of him even as the tension started to build again and his own hips started bucking up to meet hers. She was breathing in hard ragged gasps as that pulse of pressure inside her became almost unbearable, her hands balled into tight painful fists as she slammed her hips against his - wanting it to be over and go on forever in equal measure before she felt the tension suddenly release all at once.

"Fuck!" she gasped out loudly, the first time she's ever found herself using one of the "serious" curses, as she felt herself tighten hard around Dipper and a jolt ran through her whole body in a single explosive moment.

She leaned hard against his panting chest, small shudders wracking her body for a few quiet moments, the only sound is her and Dippers labored breaths mingling in the air. She slides herself off him, feeling like a puppet with cut strings as she rolled herself into his chest and under his chin, that comfortable little hollow she loved to snuggle under.

"Feeling good?" Dipper panted as he bent his head to press his lips against her forehead.

"Doy." Mabel panted back, a grin stretching across her lips.

"I'm glad... did you get to... you know..." Dipper started before trailing off.

"Yeah... it was... wow. It was good." Mabel said, biting her lip as a little after-jolt of sensation rolled through her all of a sudden. "Did you?"

"Um... no... but it was good though." Dipper said quickly.

"Really? What was wrong?" Mabel asked, suddenly feeling a little self conscious.

"Nothing - nothing was wrong at all... I guess I'm just not used to the condom thing... it felt good, but I guess it wasn't enough to get me... you know, all the way." Dipper said sheepishly.

"Well now I just feel greedy." Mabel pouted.

"No, its cool... anyway seeing you... you know... and everything... it was amazing." Dipper said with a wide grin on his face.

"I'm glad you liked the show, but you aren't getting off that easy - we do things evenly here." Mabel said as she shook the little clouds from her head and smiled back at him impishly.

Before Dipper could say one thing or another about the situation Mabel had reached her hand down low and peeled the rubber sheath off his skin, tossing it aside in her wastebasket. She made a mental note to try to find some way to dispose of the evidence a little more carefully once they were done, but then turned her attention back to the task at hand. She didn't have as much experience doing things to Dipper as he had doing things to her... he always seemed a little squirmy about it, but she had the basics down well enough. Mabel grinned as she started to pump him in her fist, feeling her pulse race as she saw him shudder at her touch... he'd never quite believed her when she had told him that she really enjoyed doing this with him, but it was true - his reactions were totally worth the effort. After a few more strokes she felt her curiosity get piqued and she wriggled her way lower down the bed to get closer to the action... she'd never tried taking him in her mouth, but it didn't seem fair for him to have done it to her twice already while she hadn't returned the favor. If nothing else it meant he was like, two points ahead in the game or something and Mabel really hated to lose. She gave him an experimental lick and was encouraged by the groan that immediately squeezed out from his lips and so she tried to go a little further. It was kind of weird, and her jaw was a bit tired from having to stay wide open but she found herself enjoying his reactions so much that she was almost disappointed when he grabbed her shoulders and pulled himself out of her before he shuddered and exploded.

"Okay, now we're even." Mabel said with a smile as she caught the deliriously happy look on her boyfriends face.

"Even is good," he panted out dazedly, "I like even."

Mabel sighed contentedly before she glanced down and grimaced slightly at the state of her bed.

"Boys are so much messier than girls." she said to no one in particular.

"Yeah, thats a fair judgment." Dipper shuddered quietly, patting the large wet patch that Mabel had left near him only moments before.

"Well, girl mess is a lot easier to clean up because we weren't built with glue guns stuck to our crotches." Mabel joked.

"I'm a little inexperienced here but I'm not really sure this is how pillow talk is supposed to go." Dipper replied.

"Well sorry for not offering you a cigarette or whatever the cliché is," Mabel teased.

"I don't mind. Weird conversations just seem to go hand in hand with loving you." Dipper said with a smile.

"Yup, better learn to deal with it." Mabel said, feeling a little surge of warmth in her chest on hearing it.

"Happily." Dipper replied.

"We should get a cake or something." Mabel said suddenly, a note of excitement in her voice.

"And why would we do that?" Dipper asked, somewhat confused but always happy to see what odd detours and stops that Mabel's train of thought had taken to arrive at that conclusion.

"Cake is traditional whenever you pass some sort of milestone," Mabel said in an authoritative voice, "you get one for being born, for living another year, for getting married, for retiring... they'd probably give you a cake at your funeral if they could find a way to make you eat it. The point is that you get cake whenever you do something important. We should totally get a 'Virginity Destroyed' cake."

"I kind of like that phrase. 'Virginity destroyed' sounds a lot cooler than 'virginity lost'." Dipper said.

"Yeah it wasn't lost - I totally knew where my virginity was, and I wasted that sucker!" Mabel said, punching the air with an energetic fist pump.

"With a little help of course." Dipper interjected.

"Yeah, it was a team effort - five stars all around, medals will be awarded later." Mabel said.

"And of course cake will be served." Dipper added.

"Heck yeah cake will be served! Okay actually now that sounds really good... this started out as a joke but now I really do want some cake." Mabel said.

"Well, we've got the rest of the day to ourselves... want to bike down to the grocery store and pick up a cake?" Dipper asked.

"Sounds awesome," Mabel said, darting her head forward to plant a small peck of a kiss on Dippers cheek. "And after we eat it we can come back up here and making sure that the pesky rapscallion known as virginity is really dead."

"Really?" Dipper asked, feeling a pulse of excitement in his veins despite his recent release.

"Oh yeah, virginity is like a vampire - it sucks and you got to keep it nailed down all the time to make sure it doesn't come back up again for revenge." Mabel said.

The pair gathered up their clothes and dressed before they made their way to the garage where their bikes were kept, walking hand in hand along the way. It had been an amazing day so far, and as Mabel hopped on her bike saddle and saw the look on Dippers face when his eyes met hers she felt the rest of it would be just as good, and with luck so would all the ones that followed after.

_Sometimes, dreams can come true... even the weird ones_, she thought happily as she and her boyfriend rode off in search of cake.


	6. Chapter 6

Time is a universal constant – the passing of a single second is always going to be exactly one second long, no matter what happens or where you are (at least on regular old earth anyway: black holes and magical dimensions don't count). Of course if anyone had tried to tell this to Dipper Pines right now he'd think that they were crazy because every time his eyes have glanced over toward the clock hanging up over the whiteboard he would swear that time somehow hasn't been moving _at all _for hours. Usually Dipper found his Physics class, if not exactly fun, then at least interesting enough to keep his mind occupied but lately he hasn't really been able to focus on it terribly well. The teachers dry lectures had turned from merely mildly boring into endless stretches of near meaningless noise & the normally straightforward seeming problems and diagrams that she had painstakingly laid out in colored markers on the stained old whiteboard had just looked like crazy gibberish to the teens distracted brain over the past few days.

The real problem was that Physics just happened to be his last class of the day, which meant that it was the last class before Dipper would join the rush of students out of the doors and to the buses which would be taking them home for the evening. In the past this kind of distraction hadn't been a problem for Dipper, who actually sort of enjoyed school, but now it also meant that Physics was the last class before he would get to take his seat on the bus next to Mabel and _that_ had become something that he had definitely started looking forward to a lot more intensely than he had been just a few months ago. It wasn't like the twins really _did _anything special when they were riding home side by side on the old bus while their fellow students chattered around them- maybe they would talk a bit about how their classes went or if anything particularly fun or interesting happened that day. It was just everyday stuff, nothing that they hadn't already been doing for most of their lives, but ever since those lives had taken a distinctly different turn from the normal a few months ago Dipper had felt his heart start to beat a little faster whenever Mabel was nearby. He felt a little embarrassed in the dark corners of his own mind when he thought about it, but he couldn't deny that ever since Mabel had become something beyond just his sister and friend that he was starting to see her in ways that he had never been accustomed to before... and that made him feel different and even a little unsure of himself when he was around her. It wasn't a _bad _feeling_,_ but it was certainly strange when the person making him feel this way was someone who he has known literally his entire life.

The first time that he had looked at her face and saw an extremely cute girl looking back at him and not just his mental image of 'Mabel' had practically left him feeling dizzy as the two images blurred together. He'd always known that she was 'cute' in an absentminded sort of way, but now he _saw_ it in the curve of her lips, the shine of her wide brown eyes, the way her hair framed her oval face.

The day when he had pulled her to him and kissed her soft pink lips and realized that she had a flavor that was uniquely her own had been another eye opener... he wondered if he had a taste as well and what she thought of it. Dipper had come to find hers almost intoxicating the longer their relationship continued.

The feel of her warm and soft in his arms when they relaxed, cuddling together in her bed after a particularly exhausting day and finding that it seemed to fill a hollow in his chest that he never knew was there. It's not that he had been _unhappy_ before they started seeing each other like this... but he knew that he had never been _this_ happy until after this connection between them had grown and strengthened into what it had become.

Even an act as simple as finding Mabel's fingers brushing against his as they shared a quick secretive glance on the bus was enough to send his brain into all kinds of crazy spirals that he still wasn't sure he'd sorted through yet.

The fact that they'd also had sex a few days ago hadn't made those warm-confusing feelings any less complicated, but they'd definitely given the days that followed after an oddly dreamlike quality that he had been thoroughly enjoying.

Dippers eyes drifted back up toward the dusty old clock once again and he frowned slightly when he saw that there were still twenty minutes of class to go, which was especially unsettling since he was _positive _the last time he'd checked it that it had read only fifteen minutes to go.

_I swear if this keeps this up I'm going to end up declaring this room an official paranormal location... like the Bermuda Triangle, but somehow incredibly boring instead of cool._

His wandering mind unhooked itself from his current reality of an uncomfortable desk chair and some nonsense about calculating velocity, and drifted back into his much more interesting thoughts about Mabel.

_Is she thinking about me right now? Or am I just being an obsessive weirdo here... do I think of her too much? How much is too much?_

Not for the first time, Dipper wished that life came with some decent instruction manuals. He would probably have already left several bookmarks for himself in sections like:

"_Relationships: A How To_"

or

"_Am I Being Creepy? - Boyfriending for the Beginner_."

If the manual was _extremely _thorough it might even have a section like:

"_So You're Dating Your Sister - How to Turn _Incest_ into _Success_ in 4 Easy Steps_".

_Pretty sure they couldn't get away with publishing that last section though, _Dipper mused. _Maybe I should be the one to write it? A handy guide for the confused teen dating their own twin... I'm sure there's probably a _huge _market for that._

Dipper glanced quickly around the room, unsubtly checking out the teacher for any sign of attentiveness but as usual she was lost in her own lecture and no one else around him seemed to be paying any attention to anything in particular, and to him least of all. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and slowly drew out his phone, feeling oddly like a criminal for doing so, and held it in his lap under the desk.

_Playing hooky and now using my phone in class... that Mabel has definitely been a bad influence on me, _he thought to himself with a grin.

Dippers thumb slid across the screen, unlocking it with practiced ease as he pulled up the 'Images' folder and selected the last picture taken. He wasn't normally a selfies kind of guy, but Mabel had insisted that they each take a photo to commemorate a particular milestone occasion a few days ago and he hadn't protested the idea.

It was a simple picture - the two of them sitting together at the kitchen table, one arm around each others shoulders and their other arm held out as they each took the shot simultaneously with their own phone. Between them there was a small cheap chocolate cake covered in sprinkles with a leftover birthday candle from last year burning brightly in the middle of it. They had argued a bit in the store about the flavor for the cake and chocolate was the best compromise - the sprinkles had probably helped seal the deal since Dipper was convinced that Mabel would probably put sprinkles on a rare steak if anyone would let her get away with it. Their cheeks in the picture were a little flushed, possibly from the bike ride back from the grocery store, but Dipper knew that the big smiles plastered across their faces had more to do with what they had gotten up to earlier that morning... and then would get up to again after they finished the cake. There was even a third time that day, after they had taken a relaxing afternoon nap together and realized that they still had _just _enough time to get away with it before their parents got home from work, though they were both kind of sore and exhausted after that one.

_The second time had been the best_, Dipper thought to himself as he smiled fondly at the small image of Mabel on his glowing phone screen. _We'd both been more... comfortable I guess. Not as nervous anyway since we already knew what we were in for... able to relax and focus and just _enjoy_ it more than the first time, even though the first time was still great in its own way._

His mind flashed back to memories of that day... particularly of that second time when Mabel had lead him by the hand up the stairs and to her room once more, after they had already disposed of the evidence of their celebratory cake.

They had stripped themselves bare as soon as the door closed, all earlier embarrassments and thoughts of modesty gone after that explosive life-changing morning. His eyes had watched eagerly as the layers of clothes fell aside, revealing more of her and he'd noticed with some surprise that Mabel was watching him undress exactly the same way. He'd never thought of himself as being attractive, but he could see that she apparently had different opinions on that subject. Mabel had pushed him back gently when he'd started to move to embrace her, shooing him off to sit on the corner of her bed while she went to her computer and set some music playing. Dipper didn't recognize the song but it was light and slow and gentle and the notes seemed to float through the air around him when Mabel turned back from her screen and his eyes caught hers. There was a moment as she walked back from the computer and toward him when it all seemed to line up in the strangest way. The music, and the feel of the plush comforter of the bed against his skin and the beating of his heart and the look in her eye... it all combined into something that seemed more vivid than life, like an image from a dream.

She'd straddled his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face to hers for a kiss as he ran his hands over her back and around the soft curve of her hips. The kiss tasted heavily of chocolate from the cake, but even under the thick sugary flavor of frosting there was still that indefinable taste of _Mabel_ that drove Dipper to kiss her harder, seeking more of that delicious essence. She'd responded eagerly, her own tongue gliding against his as she unconsciously rocked her hips and ground herself down against his thigh in a way that drove him absolutely crazy. They kept things at a gentle pace at first, letting the heat inside them build until Dipper couldn't stand it any longer and he'd slid a hand around from her back and down the front of her torso, his fingers stroking their way down to the hot joint between her thighs. She had moaned loudly into his ear as he'd rubbed at her, but before he could feel too smug her own hand hand had groped its way along his thigh and taken a hold of him and before long she had him shuddering alongside her.

He'd half-lifted Mabel off his lap and she'd eagerly wriggled back onto her bed and held her arms out wide, letting him fall into her embrace as they tangled together on her bed and ground and writhed against each other. Even as fogged as his mind was Dipper made sure to grab one of the small foil squares they had left on the little table by Mabel's bed earlier that morning and slid the condom on with slightly more expertise than he had the first time (though not by much). He had grabbed onto her hips and she'd lifted them up invitingly, her eyes burning into his hungrily and her cheeks flushed. He'd needed her help again to guide himself in but this time everything seemed to go smoother than it had earlier that morning. This was still new for the both of them, and Dipper was surprised that just changing who was where could have so much of an effect on the way everything _felt_. Something about being on top really appealed to him though... watching Mabel's reaction as he shifted his hips, seeing her face scrunch up and hearing the little gasps of pleasure that he drove out of her with his thrusts... nothing else in the world had ever made him feel like this before, and maybe nothing else ever would. He bent low over her and covered her mouth with his, wincing as her nails dug painful little half-moons into his back and her legs wrapped themselves almost crushingly tight around his waist to encourage him. He could see that she was getting close, recognizing all those little telltale signs that he'd picked up from their weeks of fooling around and despite the burning of his muscles he tried to quicken his pace. He wanted to see her... no, he _needed _to see it happen. He loved that perfect moment when Mabel's eyes rolled back and her mouth hung slack and those twitches shuddered through her body, and he especially loved knowing that _he _was the one who could make her feel this way. He could feel the beginnings first tremor start to shake through her and-

***BBBBBRRRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGG***

The shriek of the school bell tore through the airy stuff of Dipper's daydreams so hard that the shock almost made him fall out of his chair. Fortunately he managed to catch himself at the last second and was shaking his head quickly to try and dislodge the sense of jarring confusion of reality intruding.

_Oh, right. I'm still here in class._

Dipper glanced up sourly at the clock.

_So _now _you decide to let time pass, right when I was just getting to the best part? _

_Jackass._

Dippers classmates hadn't noticed his distracted clumsiness in their haste to leave the room and even the teacher seemed eager to get out as soon as the last of the stragglers had packed up, shooting Dipper several impatient looks as he sat back in his desk, breathing deeply and trying to focus on the present once more. Dipper made ready to go but had to take care of a small problem caused by his trip through memory lane first.

_Okay: Soos belly-dancing. Grunkle Stan naked. Bigfoot. That time I was almost eaten by a dinosaur. Aliens.  
_

The ritual took effect and Dipper once again felt comfortable with standing up and sprinted out of the near empty classroom and toward the waiting buses.

* * *

Mabel relaxed in her preferred seat at the very back of the old yellow bus, glancing out the window for some sign of Dipper. She used to really hate the fact that none of her friends lived anywhere near her neighborhood, but lately she was actually sort of grateful for it since it meant that she could sit alone with her brother and not snub anyone or raise any sort of suspicion for doing so. She was happy to spend her lunch period hanging out with her girlfriends, but even so she'd occasionally send a glance Dipper's way or notice that he was doing the same and feel a very slight pang of separation. It would be nice if he could join her there too, like her friends boyfriends sometimes did, but Mabel knew that idea wouldn't go down too well.

Not that Mabel really cared about suspicion... well, not that she cared _that _much. If pressed she would to admit to herself that she worried about it a little, but not nearly as much as she thought Dipper did. They'd sat together on the bus for years and the day after they had started their odd relationship he'd tried to take another seat, glancing nervously around the bus as he did... though after Mabel had pointed out to him that suddenly switching seats around for no reason was _more _suspicious than doing the same thing they always did he'd changed his mind.

The bus engine roared to life and the creaky door began to close, but a familiar set of pounding footsteps sounded nearby and when the door squeaked open once more Mabel was pleased to see that Dipper had made it in time after all. He gave her a small smile as he walked down the aisle, stepping around the piles of nameless junk left on the floor and dodging the occasional rambunctious freshman, plopping down beside her with a sigh and wiping the back of his hand over his flushed face.

"Cutting it a little close this time aren't you bro?" Mabel asked.

"I lost track of time earlier. There's possibly some sort of wormhole or something near the physics class." Dipper replied.

"Uh-huh, I'm sure that's the most likely explanation." Mabel said.

"Yep, definitely the most reasonable one as far as I can see." Dipper said with a nod.

They fell into an easy banter, and Mabel found a smile coming to her face just from hearing the sound of his voice and seeing him here next to her. His hand reached out and brushed against hers, shielded from prying eyes by the backpack resting on the seat between them and she took his hand in hers, feeling a flutter of happiness in her chest at the feel of his fingers threading together with hers. Holding hands on the bus was unusually bold for Dipper, and she definitely took it as an encouraging sign that maybe he was starting to loosen up a little more.

When they were alone together he was the most relaxed guy on earth, but she had noticed that when they had begun seeing each other that he'd started becoming nervous and squirrelly when he was out in public with her... as if everyone they passed by in the street was some sort of evil mind reader or an agent from the Ministry of Love or something out to expose their secret. As far as Mabel was concerned it had been the one flaw in their relationship, but she'd tried not to let it get her down. That weird nervous phase seemed to be slackening though as the first early unexplored days of their relationship had turned to happy months and cops hadn't swarmed the house to put them in the iron maiden or whatever other phantom Dipper's paranoid brain had conjured up.

She glanced at him and smiled and saw that he had turned and caught sight of something on the bus that was bugging him. She followed his gaze and saw a pair of sophomores sitting a few rows ahead of them who seemed to be making a spirited attempt to swallow each others faces. She turned back to Dipper and saw that there was a small troubled line on his forehead, but it disappeared when she squeezed his fingers encouragingly in hers. He turned and gave her a small smile and then leaned back into the bus seat. She leaned back along with him and he lolled his head lazily toward hers.

"Do you ever get jealous when you see something like that?" Dipper whispered to her, a slightly worried tone in his voice.

"Nah, that guy looks like a terrible kisser. You see? _Way_ too much tongue and hardly any of it is going in her mouth. I wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally poked it up her nose sometimes." Mabel said critically, waving a hand around to illustrate her point.

"No, I mean... you know, about the fact that they can just _do_ that." Dipper said.

"Who wants to kiss in front of a big audience?" Mabel asked, "Especially if it contains people who are going to criticize your technique."

"I guess I hadn't thought of it that way." Dipper said, his voice a little brighter than before.

"Seriously though, just look at him flailing around out there - I can hardly stand to watch." Mabel said.

"Well she doesn't look a lot better," Dipper said, joining in the game, "she's got her lips all puckered up tight like she's eaten a bushel of lemons and then just kind of rams them against his face."

"I know right? Just a disgraceful display here folks, 3/10 tops." Mabel said with a sad shake of her head.

"I think you're being a little generous, but I'll agree with your rating." Dipper said with a nod.

"Now a _good_ kisser," Mabel whispered warmly, "would be paying more attention to what she's doing and reacting to it and then getting her to react back to him... just smooshing your mouth all over her face is totally amateur hour material."

"Look at the way she just has her hands lying limp at her sides... hands are like, half the fun... she's not running them through his hair or over his neck or anything." Dipper said.

"I give these kids a week before they break it off." Mabel said.

"Harsh." Dipper replied, raising an inquiring eyebrow at her.

"Any guy who kissed _me_ like that would be lucky to get a week." Mabel said with firm finality.

Dipper chuckled quietly to himself.

"So... what would a guy who kissed you like I do be lucky to get?" Dipper whispered.

Mabel blushed a little to herself at the question.

"Well I'm not sure about the exact numbers... so lets just keep going out and find that answer out together." she whispered back.

Dipper smiled and squeezed her hand in his warmly.

"I like the sound of that." he said.

They passed the rest of the bus ride in relative silence, watching the somewhat revolting show play out and feeling a warm strength flowing through each others hands.

* * *

"We definitely need a car of our own." Mabel said as the twins made their way down the steps of the bus and walked together up the driveway to their house. "I think if I have to see something like that again I might end up bleaching my eyes."

"C'mon, it wasn't _that _awful." Dipper said.

"Well it definitely wasn't pretty, whatever it was." Mabel replied.

"I'd agree with you about the car thing though... whats the point of even having our licenses if we've got nothing to use them with." Dipper griped.

"Well, we _do_ get to use them... but only when our folks are feeling lazy and send us out to run errands for them." Mabel said.

"Its a lame situation all around." Dipper said.

"Agreed." Mabel said with a nod as she turned the key and stepped into their home.

The house was unusually silent as they made their way in, and when they walked to the kitchen together they saw a note pinned to the fridge with a colorful magnet written in their mothers carefully curled handwriting.

_Kids,_

_Heading to a baby-shower for a friend right after work, not sure when I'll be back. There's $20 in the cookie jar, get yourselves a pizza._

_-Mom_

They read it together and Mabel reached into the normally empty jar and extracted a crisp bill.

"Well Sir Dippingsauce, it looks like dinner will be on me tonight," she said, waving the bill around airily.

"How generous of you," Dipper replied dryly.

"That's just the kind of girl I am - totally modern. Buying my man dinner and voting and all that good stuff." Mabel said.

"Since when have you ever voted?" Dipper asked.

"When my friend Sally was running for class president I voted for her about 20 times." Mabel replied.

"Call me crazy but I think that _might _be sort of against the rules of that whole 'democracy' thing." Dipper joked.

"Pffft, only if you're enough of a chump to get caught." Mabel said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Why am I not surprised that you were once a congressman?" Dipper said.

"So are we eating or what? Because I could keep this up with you all day but I'm pretty sure I'll starve to death before too much longer." Mabel said as she rubbed her empty belly.

"Sure, order something up - I've got some homework to take care of anyway." Dipper said as he slumped into a kitchen chair and opened his backpack, pulling out his textbooks and pencils.

Mabel placed the order and joined her brother at the table, pulling out a few books of her own and setting to work on an essay that she'd been trying to hammer out over the past week to little success. It probably didn't help that it was supposed to be 4 pages long and that she's only read the Wikipedia summary of the book, but she figured that would be enough to work with. The book looked like a huge downer anyway and she wasn't really in the mood to spoil the carefree bubble that she'd been floating through over the past few days after she had taken her very enjoyable day off with her brother. She glanced up at Dipper as he sat with his head cradled lazily in one hand, reading through his history book about some sort of tariff or something, and felt a happy grin start to spread over her face. Maybe it was silly or childish or whatever, but she couldn't help but feel a little warm pulse of happiness in her chest whenever she was near him - even when it was just doing everyday junk like homework.

Or maybe she just had just developed a little affection for seeing him with that studious expression on his face and a book cracked open in front of him since it had been homework that had brought them together in the first place.

_Well, the homework hadn't been exactly what had brought us together... but it was there in the background. _Mabel corrected herself.

Mabel had managed to crank out a new page made up entirely of guesswork and nonsense by the time the doorbell had rang to signal the arrival of dinner, and the twins had put their schoolwork aside as they dug into the pizza.

Mabel glanced casually at the note pinned to the fridge once again and wrestled internally with indecision. It had only really been a few days since they'd gotten to do anything physical together, but she'd been getting pretty antsy about it anyway. She'd thought at first that maybe finally having se... naked bouncy stuff... with Dipper would have helped with her feelings, but if anything that had just intensified her desire to be with him more often.

_Definitely not regretting that decision since it was more amazing than I'd even hoped,_ she thought to herself_, _ _but once you've tasted donuts how can you go back to bagels? _

Her mom was off at that baby shower thing and her dad was off on a business trip till tommorow night. They _did _have the house to themselves... but Mabel wasn't really sure for how long.

Risky.

Despite what Dipper may have thought Mabel wasn't completely reckless - she didn't like the idea of getting caught in the act any more than he did.

_Awkward wouldn't even _begin _to describe that situation. _she thought to herself grimly.

Still though, they were completely alone. Totally alone. Just him and her. Yup.

_Screw it, _Mabel thought to herself, swallowing her last bite of pizza and setting her plate aside. Dipper had already finished his and was scanning through his history notes again absentmindedly.

"Yeah, this essay isn't going anywhere." Mabel said aloud, slipping her worn and crossed out pages back into the margins of her English book.

"Really? Would you want me to take a look at it?" Dipper asked, glancing up from his notes.

"Nah, I still have till Monday to turn it in." Mabel said casually.

"Well, if you're sure." Dipper said, his eyes turning back to his notes.

"I might need your help with something else though." Mabel said.

"Oh? Whatcha need sis?" Dipper asked, half interested.

"My... um... math homework." she replied with just the hint of a grin starting to twitch at the corners of her mouth.

"Oh... like, math homework or... you know, _math homework_." Dipper said, no longer merely half-interested.

"The second one." Mabel said with a nod, her lower lip nipped in her teeth as she gave Dipper a glance that set his blood pumping.

"Ah... yeah, I'd been thinking about your math... um... okay, I can't keep up this dumb innuendo anymore - I want you really badly." Dipper confessed.

"Me too." Mabel said.

"Are you sure though? I mean... she could be home literally any second." Dipper said slightly nervously.

"Well... we've '_studied'_ when they were around before..." Mabel said.

"Yeah, but not ... you know, all the way." Dipper said.

"So do you not want to?" Mabel asked, trying to hide her disappointment.

"Oh no, I definitely do... I couldn't stop thinking about it during my last class." Dipper said somewhat sheepishly.

"Haha, my boyfriends a huge perv!" Mabel said cheerfully.

"I refuse to respond to that." Dipper said flatly.

"So are we just going to sit here talking all day or..." Mabel said slowly as she backed her chair out from under the table before she started to dash her way up the stairs.

"Slow down, I'm almost there." Dipper said as he scooted his own chair out and started to race up after her.

"That's what she said!" Mabel called back down the stairs.

"Those jokes have never been funny." Dipper called back up.

* * *

They had seen the flash of lights heading into the driveway, but by that point neither of them was in any mood to stop. Mabel was writhing happily under Dipper and the sight of her flushed face and her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat was driving him forward even as he could hear the faint echo of the car door slamming. Their eyes met but when he seemed to want to slow she had pulled his mouth to hers for a searing kiss that had completely banished the idea from his mind. He could feel how close she was and it was almost too much for him to take.

The faint sound of a key scraping in a lock floated up the stairs, audible even through the sound of their panting breaths and the high little squeaks that Mabel tried to silence with clenched teeth. Right as Dipper heard the sound of the houses front door opening he felt the tension in Mabel release all at once, her hand flying to her mouth as she bit down hard on her knuckle to muffle the scream that wanted desperately to tear out from her throat. Dipper was just seconds behind, shuddering and stifling a quiet grunt as he buried his face into Mabel's thick mane of hair.

He collapsed down next to her, feeling her sweat slick skin as she pressed against him. Their eyes turned toward her door. He could feel her grow tense in his arms, but he held her tightly trying to pass as much comfort as he could through the simple hug.

"Hey kids, you home?" the voice of their mother called out below.

They sat frozen for a few seconds. This situation had never really factored into any of Dipper's plans, and Mabel seemed to have gone almost comatose with shock.

"Kids?" the voice called once again.

"Yeah, we're here." Dipper called back, cursing the exhausted shaking in his voice.

"Did you guys get that pizza?" she asked.

"Yup. Delicious." Dipper answered again, feeling Mabel dig herself tightly into his chest.

"Cool. You guys don't stay up to late, alright? You've got school tomorrow."

"We wont...I'm just.. helping Mabel with some math stuff." Dipper called back. He wondered if it was possible for the human heart to explode from stress, because his seemed to be doing its best to try.

"Okay then, have a good night sweetie." she called back.

They heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and the door down the hall click open and shut and then silence fell over the house.

Mabel turned up to Dipper with wide eyes.

"Dipper, I think that might be the bravest thing I've ever seen you do." she said quietly.

"Really?" Dipper asked, feeling the slamming of his stressed out heartbeat begin to slow to calm once again when fiery parental retribution failed to appear.

"Oh yeah... taking on giant robots and monsters and stuff is one thing... but talking to your mom while you're lying naked in bed with a girl... geez." Mabel said with a shake of her head.

"Yeah that wasn't easy." Dipper admitted.

"Sorry for choking... I just totally froze up as soon as I heard her talking." Mabel said quietly.

"Yeah... maybe next time we'll wait till we're completely sure we won't be disturbed." Dipper replied.

"So... you still want there to be a next time?" Mabel asked, glancing at him with a worried look in her eyes.

"Yes... I mean... as long as you want there to be." Dipper replied, feeling a chill run through him at the sound of the question.

"You aren't too freaked out or stressed or whatever about this?" Mabel said, looking at him questioningly.

_She's not freaked... well she is... but shes more worried that _I'm _freaked, _Dipper realized suddenly, _she's worried that I'm going to chicken out and leave her because I'm worried about getting caught._

_Maybe I would have done that once... but not now. Not after all this. Not after getting to _see_ her as she really is... not after discovering that she has a flavor or learning about any of those dozens of things that I would never have known if I had never gotten close to her like this. I don't _ever_ want to lose that.  
_

"Yeah its kinda freaky-stressful... but... I mean... I love you. So... I guess I don't care as much about the stress as I do about that." Dipper said, his voice stumbling out the halting explanation, unable to really put into words all the thoughts that had been swirling through his head lately. He hoped that it would be enough, weak as it had sounded to his ears.

There was a wet shine in Mabel's eyes and she leaned up and planted her lips against Dipper's in a soft kiss, breathing in the scent of him and loving the feel of his breath mingling with hers.

"Good." she said quietly. "I love you too."

"We'll just have to be more careful." Dipper repeated.

"You know, we could just play hooky more often." Mabel pondered, lightness slowly making its way back into her voice.

"Hmmm... there's a limited number of times we could use that before it comes back to bite us though." Dipper mused.

"Yeah, I guess so," Mabel said in a disappointed tone.

"Still, its not an impossible problem... I mean, if it _was_ impossible then I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be all that teen pregnancy and stuff that they're always warning us about in school." Dipper joked.

"Good point," Mabel agreed, snuggling her face warmly into the crook of Dipper's neck and shoulder.

"We can probably get away with a lot more if we had our own car." Dipper said.

"Yet another reason that we should get our own wheels - to facilitate awesome boyfriend-girlfriend bouncy good times of the naked variety." Mabel said, nodding sagely.

"Yeah, we might want to leave that bit out of the sales pitch next time we try and convince them to get us one." Dipper said.

"Probably. You've got to tailor the message to the audience after all." Mabel agreed.

"So... um... should I get dressed?" Dipper asked, somewhat hesitantly. It wasn't really _that _late but it did feel weird being with her like his when he knew they weren't alone.

"If you must," Mabel said with a disappointed sigh.

"Well... maybe just a few more minutes." Dipper said, not really feeling the urge to leave the warmth of Mabel's bed that strongly after all. Or the warmth of Mabel in his arms.

They lay together in warm silence as the minutes ticked down to almost a full hour, not saying much but loving the gentle pressure of their bodies lying against one another. The feel of their hands idly running along one another's skin. The small kisses they gave, without any of their heat from earlier but laden with affection that they could practically feel radiating through their skin.

"Hey Dip.." Mabel asked quietly, breaking the soft silence between them.

"Yeah?" Dipper asked drowsily.

"Is everything going to be okay? You know... with us." Mabel asked.

"Yes." Dipper replied quietly.

"Yeah?" Mabel said.

"Definitely." Dipper said, feeling a confidence in his words that would have seemed impossible to him just weeks ago.

"Good." Mabel said sleepily, drifting off into a gentle snore.

Dipper waited for a few minutes before he carefully wriggled his way out of the bed, bringing the blankets up and tucking her in securely. He dressed quietly and paused by the door, taking a final glance back at Mabel's sleeping form before he shut off the lights, especially the soft curve of her lips as she smiled in her sleep.

_Everything _is _going to be okay, _Dipper thought to himself fiercely as he tip-toed back to his bedroom and got himself ready for sleep.

_I'll make sure of that, no matter what. _


	7. Chapter 7

Mabel glanced down at her steaming lunch tray, poking at an unidentifiable brown mash with her spork and wrinkled her nose when the utensil became stuck in a particularly viscous chunk.

"I'm pretty sure they make this stuff out of the kids who did bad on their practice SAT's." she said conversationally to the mousy blond girl sitting beside her.

"Is your source on that reliable? Because then we might be able to blackmail them into serving us something better since we know their dark secret." Sally replied as she tried to lever a chunk of the strange goop from her own tray before her spork splintered with an audible *SNAP*.

"Sorry, it's all just hearsay and speculation. I could probably convince my bro to do some junior detective stuff around the lunch room just in case my hunch is correct though." Mabel said with a sigh, giving up on the mystery entree entirely and turning her attention to the relatively safe mashed potatoes instead.

_I probably could too if I sounded really serious about it,_ Mabel thought to herself, _Like when we were nine years old and we spent a week together investigating to see if girl scout cookies were actually made from girl scouts. He'd seemed almost disappointed that there wasn't actually some dark secret behind that, but at least we got some free Thin Mints out of the whole ordeal._

"You think he'd be able to crack a case this serious?" Sally asked in mock surprise.

"Can't think of anyone better for the job, he's like Sherlock Holmes in a baseball cap." Mabel said confidently.

"You think he'd be a little better at picking up on clues then," Sally said, grumbling slightly.

_Okay... what does she mean by that?_

"So are you just going to be all cryptic or are you going to elaborate on that a little?" Mabel said playfully, a half-fake smile on her face.

"Well... I've kind of been dropping hints at him that I think he's... you know... cute. There's that Spring dance coming up and I've been trying to see if he'd want to go with me..." Sally said shyly.

"Oh... _oooooh_... okay, yeah. That makes sense, with the line about the clues and all." Mabel said, stumbling slightly over the words and trying to hide the small flustered feeling growing in her chest.

_Why didn't he ever tell me that happened?_

"Are you alright Mabel? You look kinda freaked there... oh my god, did I do something wrong? Is it really weirding you out that I sort of like your brother?" Sally said apologetically.

_Probably not as much as it would freak _you _out that_** I** _like him, _Mabel thought to herself, biting back her nervousness.

"Whaaaaat? No, pfffft...come on - why would that freak me out... he's... um... a good guy." Mabel said with a too loud chuckle. "A little nerdy though, don't you think?"

"I like that though, its kind of sexy... ohmygod I'm really sorry again - you definitely don't want to hear me say anything like that about him." Sally said, her hand flying to her mouth.

_Yeah, but not for the reasons you think sister, _Mabel thought as a bitter spark of jealousy started to pulse somewhere in her chest.

"Oh... yeah, totally. Blarg... how gross that is to hear about him." Mabel said lamely.

It didn't help that she _agreed _that Dipper's serious and bookish personality was something that she also found pretty attractive... as well as his bravery, his sense of adventure... the concern he showed for her...

"He didn't really seem to notice though." Sally said dejectedly.

"Well I'm sure its nothing with you - c'mon, you're a total babe!" Mabel said with a secretly relieved smile, giving her friend a playful punch on the arm. It was ever so slightly harder than the usual ones Mabel gave, and her friend winced from the sting.

"Thanks Mabel... what's his deal though? He's smart and kind of funny and stuff but I haven't ever seen him with a girlfriend." Sally said as she rubbed her arm.

"Oh, he's got a girl he likes but she's... um... in Oregon!" Mabel said quickly as inspiration struck her like a bolt of lightning.

"For real?" Sally said.

"Yeah, her names Wendy and he met her a few years ago when we went up to stay with my great uncle there. Dipper is _super_ into her - he won't even look at any other girls." Mabel blurted, half-truths and lies blurring together easily in her haste to come up with some sort of explanation.

"That's kind of sweet - he only gets to see her like two months at a time and still stays faithful to her the whole year around? Your brother sounds like a very romantic kind of guy." Sally said with a sigh.

Mabel noticed that Sally's eyes had drifted across the cafeteria to where Dipper was sitting with some of his friends, laughing along with them to some probably incredibly nerdy joke. A small smile was curled up on her friends pink lips and Mabel suddenly recalled that despite her shy appearance, her friend had a bit of a reputation as a heartbreaker. Sally's last boyfriend had been going out with another girl when they had first gotten together, and she hadn't been a whole state away...

_Hmmm... might need to step it up a bit to shake her off... she can get pretty feisty, _Mabel thought.

"Just try and be careful around him, okay?" Mabel said, her voice suddenly taking on a serious tone and her hand reaching out to cover one of Sally's in a concerned grip.

"What? Why?" Sally asked, confused by the sudden change in her friends voice.

"Well Wendy is super nice and all on the surface... but she's like this crazy amazon lumberjack lady and can get kind of violent sometimes." Mabel said quietly, her voice so low that Sally had to lean in to hear.

"What, really?" Sally asked, a slight note of hesitation in her voice.

"Seriously, the last girl who flirted with Dipper in that town woke up with an axe buried in her bedroom windowsill and a little heart drawn in lipstick on the window next to it." Mabel said in a hushed tone.

"Jesus!" Sally squeaked in surprise.

"The scariest part? The girls bedroom was on the second floor of her house... true story." Mabel said in the tone of one revealing the twist in a campfire ghost tale.

"Wow... that's pretty fucked up." Sally said, her voice shaky.

"Yeah, Dip was probably just trying to avoid a repeat of that incident when he ignored you flirting with him." Mabel said with a sombre nod.

"Thanks for warning me... I'll just forget about the whole thing then." Sally said quickly.

"That's probably for the best - c'mon, there's a ton of other guys here who need a date, go find yourself a good one who doesn't have an axe wielding psycho girlfriend." Mabel said cheerfully, feeling only the very slightest pang of guilt at the haunted look that had come over her friends face.

"Have you thought about who you want to go with?" Sally asked, eager to change the subject and get her mind off the unpleasant visions in her head involving axes and mysterious women with flaming red eyes.

"Go with to what?" Mabel said, her mind slightly taken aback by the conversational whiplash.

"You know, to the Spring dance - its just a week away and you haven't mentioned anyone that you were interested in." Sally said.

"What? No, I'm sure I have... probably just your mind playing tricks on you." Mabel said, feeling her earlier nervousness return at the new line of questioning.

"I'd heard Stacy from chemistry say that she heard Zack was thinking of asking you." Sally said with a conspiratorial grin.

"Oh boy... cool." Mabel said without enthusiasm. "I'm not sure he's really my type though." she added hesitantly.

"Really? Is this the same Mabel who used to draw those weird doodles of you two getting married when we were freshmen?" Sally said with a quirked eyebrow.

"That was four years ago! I'm completely over him." Mabel said as she crossed her arms defensively.

"Oh yeah, I can see how he's totally not your type - I mean, chiseled good looks, dreamy eyes, awesome smile... totally gross." Sally replied sarcastically.

"He's _okay_ yeah... but I'm seriously just not into him anymore." Mabel said firmly.

"Ooooh... so is there another guy that you've got your sights on instead?" Sally asked confidentially.

"Nope, absolutely not. Not a single one." Mabel said too quickly, "Actually I think I might just skip the dance altogether this time."

"Seriously? You used to love going to them even when you weren't going out with anyone." Sally said in confusion.

"Well what can I say... I'm just not in a real dance-y kind of mood lately I guess." Mabel said with a half-hearted shrug.

"Are you feeling alright? You've been kind of weird that these past few months... I mean, we used to hang out and guy-watch and stuff all the time but you haven't really been going out with us a lot lately." Sally said.

"Yeah... I don't know, I guess its just... um... senioritis?" Mabel said, groping for an excuse.

"Pretty sure that senioritis doesn't completely shut off your hormones." Sally said jokingly.

"Well this has been awesome catching up Sally but I've got to go... um... got a TON of homework to get back to and next period starts in fifteen minutes." Mabel said, rising quickly and taking her tray with her.

Mabel shuffled off in a nervous haze, accidentally throwing her entire lunch tray away along with the food as she dashed out of the cafeteria. She passed close to Dippers table on the way out and his eyes darted up from his friends and to her face and she saw just the faintest of smiles touch the corner of his lips. A little happy pulse surged in her chest at the sight and she returned his look with a slight smile of her own before she stepped out the door and into the warm sunny April afternoon.

_Well that was a completely awkward mess,_ Mabel thought with an exasperated sigh as she hitched her pink backpack higher up and started walking off toward the school library, hoping to get just a little privacy to sort out her thoughts before class started again.

_Sally asking Dipper out... why didn't he tell me that happened?_

_Well, maybe he actually didn't notice? For a guy who loves mysteries so much he can be pretty dense about relationship kind of stuff... I mean, I had to flat out kiss him on the mouth for him to realize that I liked him._

_Then again I was trying to __**hide**__ how I felt for a long time and Sally was probably being pretty direct, so its not a fair comparison._

_Or maybe he was just worried that I'd freak out like I'm kind of doing right now and thought that it would be better to keep it a secret. That would make sense._

_Then there's that whole Zack thing... Sorry to disappoint you thirteen year old Mabel, but when your big puppy-love first ever high school crush finally decides to ask you out you're already with another guy. Don't fret though, your current boyfriend is still very cute... and he's a lot more fun to hang out with... and he's sweet... and sexy too, though you didn't care too much about that sort of thing since you were just thirteen. Well okay, you kind of did but not as much as now. Not nearly as much as now..._

_Awesome as your beau is though, there's still a few things that are kind of tough. You can't really take him to that dance for one thing. Or go out with him on group dates with your friends. Or even kiss him when anyone else is around. That all kind of sucks a little, but then again you couldn't really have done any of that stuff if you had that vampire boyfriend that you wanted either so I guess its not so tough for you to imagine._

_Who is this mysterious stranger you ask? Well, the thing is you already know him..._

_Okay, fine enough beating around the bush... he's your brother - try not to freak out about that. Trust me, once you get over the guilt and weirdness and everything its _**totally** _worth it in ways you won't even believe. Your day's seem sunnier... songs on the radio sound nicer... he even made homework fun... sort of. Actually he made pretending_ _to do homework fun_. _You'll see what I mean in a few years..._

Mabel snorted as she imagined a younger version of herself walking beside her and listening to her mental rant.

_I wonder what I would have done if I went back in time and actually told my thirteen year old self all this stuff? How would I have reacted?_

_I probably would have freaked out a lot._

_Then again, I dated a merman and was engaged to a bunch of gnomes once so maybe I wouldn't have been that freaked out? Of course it actually did take me a long time to stop being so freaked out when I started having those dreams about Dipper when this whole thing started in the first place..._

_Either way it doesn't matter what I would have thought or would not have thought or any of that junk... I don't have a time machine at the moment, and the fact is that I'm here now, and I'm happy. Stupidly happy... I can't even think of that goober without smiling a little and I know he's crazy about me too, so what does any of it matter?_

_Plus I always wanted to have a mysterious forbidden romance when I was a kid and now I've got a real doozy... you don't really get more forbidden than this. Dating a vampire is easy mode by comparison._

Mabel leaned up against the wall outside of the school library and saw a poster advertising the upcoming Spring dance pasted on the door and she felt a small frown cloud her brow.

_Why would Sally make such a big deal about this anyway? Its just a stupid dance. We've had tons of those through the years._

_Except this is our final year here so we really don't have that many left, do we? Graduations in like, two months._

Mabel sighed and turned back to walk toward the main building when she heard the end of lunch bell ring.

_If I was being honest with myself, I'd have to admit that it does kind of suck that even though I've got an awesome boyfriend that I can't go make a few memories together with him doing normal date-y type stuff, like going to a stupid highschool dance._

_I guess that's the bad thing about forbidden romance, _Mabel thought to herself, _it's sort of... frowned upon. Hence the whole 'forbidden' part._

* * *

The rest of the day passed by in a blur and by the time the final period bell had rang Mabel was already completely over her earlier funk... generally it was hard for any sort of bad mood to keep her down for long and there wasn't anything here that seemed worth getting _that_ worked up over. It helped that she'd passed by her super secret boyfriend in the hallway between periods and he'd given her a warm look and a small squeeze of her hand in his that had sent a little thrill of energy up her arm and straight to her core. It was hard to stay gloomy with those little reminders peppered throughout her day... maybe things with her and Dipper _were_ weird and secret and definitely forbidden... but that didn't mean they were bad. Who cares that she couldn't kiss him when anyone else was around if the kisses they shared always made her heart flutter? What did it matter that they couldn't go on a group date together when the small private moments they shared filled her up with a warmth that she hadn't felt with anyone else before?

Besides, it was Friday and the beautiful sound of the final bell ringing meant that she was now free from school for 48 glorious hours - and that always cheered her up no matter what sort of mood she was in. Two whole days of stress free goofing off with her bro-beau lay ahead of her... not to mention make-outs and more if they could manage to get away with it, which they pretty much always could nowadays once they'd learned to take a few precautions and not freak out as much at any sort of stray noise around the house.

_We've become like ninja masters when it comes to finding ways to sneak in secret make outs, _Mabel thought to herself with a goofy grin.

She bounced her way out of class at high speed, weaving through the waves of underclassmen crowding the hall on the way to her locker, humming the chorus to '_Taking Over Midnight_' to herself along the way. As she turned the corner to the hallway where her locker was located she felt the hairs raise on the back of her neck and froze suddenly, as though warned by some ancient animal instinct. She quickly scanned the hallway and gulped when she spotted the source of her unconscious distress.

_Oh fudge!, _she thought to herself when she caught sight of a tall strongly built boy leaning casually against her locker and glancing around the hallway with a somewhat eager look on his face.

_I guess Sally wasn't kidding about the Zack thing. This was a bad day to leave my grappling hook at home... I'm sure those vents near the math hallway are still climbable, though I might not fit in now as easily as I did when I was a sophomore trying to sneak back into school._

_Okay Mabel, just play it cool. Maybe he's just here because they suddenly switched his locker to this hallway... halfway through the school year... with my locker... without telling me._

_Also, maybe Waddles is going to be the new gym coach and they'll finally listen to my suggestion of teaching creative scrapbooking as an art elective,_ she thought sarcastically.

_Alright, so he's probably here to ask me out. Obviously if he does I gotta say no... but I SUCK at turning guys down and hurting their feelings. I couldn't even turn down a date with Gideon and I'm pretty sure he might be the Antichrist... and what if he asks why I'd say no? What if he asks if I'm seeing someone? What if he can read my mind or I just blurt out that my boyfriend is Dipper!_

_Get a hold of yourself woman! There's no need to go completely nuts here - this is NOT the end of the world. Think... think think think. Maybe I should just act all tough and icy and stuff and he'll get nervous and won't be able to ask me anything? Can't hurt to try..._

Mabel gulped down the twinge of nervousness she felt tickling her throat and slung her backpack high on her shoulders, throwing her head back and striding down the hallway like she owned it with all the bluster and swagger that she was definitely not feeling in her gut at the moment.

_So far so good, he doesn't even seem to notice that I'm here. Just gotta look all mean and unapproachable and I should be able to get to the bus without any kind of awkward-_

"Hey, Mabel-" a voice said cheerfully from the direction of the lockers. Her eyes darted to the side and she saw Zack's blue eyes smiling at her and a cocky grin on his kind of smug, but admittedly pretty handsome face.

_Double fudge!_

"Oh hey... um... you." Mabel said, trying her best for ice-queen but coming off more like ice-cream princess. For the first time in her life Mabel Pines found herself cursing her natural cuteness.

"Zack," he said with his smile not faltering, "C'mon, we've shared at least one class together for four years now."

"Right - Zack! How silly of me, must have slipped my mind." Mabel said with a nervous too-long chuckle.

_Argh! I'm no good at this being mean stuff - how does Pacifica manage to do this without feeling like a giant butt?_

"No problem, I'm sure you had a lot to think about." Zack said as he leaned back further against the lockers and shot her another winning smile.

"Oh yeah... tons of thoughts going on right now. Too many actually! Yes! I feel a huge migraine coming on, so I should probably go get some water or aspirin or something," Mabel said as she started to shuffle slowly backwards toward the double doors leading out of the school.

"Oh, uh... alright?" Zack said, seeming confused for the first time in the conversation.

"Yeah, so I'll see you later or something." Mabel said as she increased her pace, spinning around and moving with a quick shuffling gait to the door. Her mouth went dry when she heard heavier footsteps jogging behind her.

"Actually I had something I wanted to ask you," Zack said as he moved up beside her.

"Oh, um... alright," Mabel said, feeling a nervous sinking in her chest.

_Curse my irresistibly!_

"Well, you know there's that dance coming up right?" Zack said.

"I had no idea actually - I'm completely surprised!" Mabel said with a brittle false smile. Her eyes darted to the side and she saw that she was standing next to an especially large glitter-covered poster advertising the dance and remembered with a hint of guilt that she (and the rest of the art club) had been the ones to make it. Her signature glistened accusingly at her from the lower left corner of the poster in metallic purple gel pen ink.

"Well, I was wondering if-" he began.

"Oh my god! Its... um... a famous local sports hero!" Mabel screamed excitedly, pointing down the hallway opposite the doors.

"Who?" Zack asked in confusion, his head turning for just a fraction of a second down the direction she pointed.

He turned back just in time to catch sight of a purple and pink blur dashing quickly through the double doors, brown curls of hair flying out behind her like a jasmine scented streamer.

"WellitwasniceseeingyouZackletscatchuplaterbye!"

Zack stood stunned in the hallway scratching his head at the trail of bowled over and groaning students she'd left in her wake.

"I guess weirdness just runs in their family," he muttered to himself with a shake of his head.

* * *

Dipper greeted Mabel with a smile from their usual seat on the back of the bus when she'd first burst through the vehicle doorway, glancing around wildly as if she was being pursued by cannibals. She glared suspiciously out the window but when whatever was worrying her failed to materialize she made her way back along the aisle of the bus and plopped herself down beside him with a relieved sigh.

"Rough day?" he asked mildly, carefully placing his backpack between them to shield his hand from prying eyes when it snaked out and grabbed Mabel's in an affectionate squeeze.

"A little weird at times yeah," she said with a shrug, returning the squeeze and throwing him a small wink for good measure.

"High school drama weird or being mind-blasted by a demonic nacho chip in a top hat weird?" Dipper asked.

"The boring regular kind of weird," Mabel said with a laugh. Sometimes she forgot how absurd her life could get at times when she was here in the 'real world' doing normal stuff and not off on some sort of bizarre adventure with her brother.

"Sounds like nothing you can't handle then - I've seen you deal with some pretty messed up stuff before, so I'm sure you could take whatever this was." Dipper said with a note of admiration in his voice.

"Thanks Dip... that's nice to hear." she said brightly, feeling slightly more confident.

"But if it turns out to be something you do need help with don't hesitate to call me for backup though," Dipper added.

"Nah, I think this is small stuff... I was just making it out to be bigger than it really was in my head." Mabel said, feeling the stress and discomfort from earlier lift away from her chest as the gentle rhythm of the bus and the feel of Dipper's warm hand in hers soothed her nerves.

"Cool... so, I was wondering..." Dipper said slowly.

"Wondering?" Mabel asked.

"Well, do you have any big plans for tonight?" Dipper asked.

"I was probably going to go cook meth and plot the overthrow of a small country with the art club later, but I might be able to put it off for a while, why?" Mabel joked.

"I've seen your chemistry grades Mabel, I think meth might be a little out of your league," Dipper said teasingly.

"I didn't say it was going to be very _good_ meth," Mabel answered flippantly.

"_Anyway_, I was just wondering if maybe you'd want to... I dunno... go out tonight. We could go catch a movie or something, maybe take a walk in the park?" Dipper asked.

"What, like on a date?" Mabel said with a bright smile.

_This is a first, _she thought in slight surprise, _maybe that thing about twins sharing thoughts is at least sort of real and he knew about my little freak out earlier at lunch?_

"Sort of... okay yeah, exactly like a date," Dipper said.

"I'd love to." Mabel replied with a pleased grin.

"Great! So, should I pick you up at your place at 7?" Dipper asked jokingly.

"Dork. Giant dork right here." Mabel replied, poking her brother gently in the ribs and grinning to herself as he pursed his lips and tried not to giggle ticklishly from her prodding.

They settled in comfortably for the rest of the ride home, poking and teasing at each other right up until they pulled up to the curb of their neighborhood and walked out together. As the bus wound the curve of the block and disappeared from view Dipper's hand found Mabel's once again and they walked in step together toward their house each silently enjoying one another's company.

* * *

Dipper tended to live his life deliberately, always trying to plan ahead whenever possible - and that was exactly the case with tonight. He'd noticed Mabel getting a little antsy since the two of them tended to spend a lot of time at home together ever since they started going out - the situation was alright with him since the lack of monsters and weirdness in his hometown made going out a boring prospect for him, but Mabel had always been a more outgoing person in general. The last thing Dipper wanted was for her to start getting bored with the idea of spending time with him, and he worried that she would if they were just doing the same thing all the time.

He'd plotted and schemed and wracked his brain over trying to come up with the perfect date... something fun and romantic that would bring one of those heart-achingly beautiful smiles to Mabel's face that he loved to see. Unfortunately most of the options that came to mind were either out of his league budget wise or impossible without the use of some serious heavy duty magic, and this year he had forced himself to leave all his supernatural junk up in Gravity Fall's in a secret niche in the Mystery Shack so that he wouldn't be tempted to abuse it in his day to day life here in California. He didn't want a repeat of his disastrous Sophomore year when he'd not been so strict with himself as he was now...

Nonetheless Dipper was determined to make tonight as special as he could, even if all he had available was a beat up leather wallet that contained more $1's than $20's and the key's to his mom's faded sky-blue minivan (which he had promised to wash on Saturday so that he would be able to use it tonight).

It was odd, but Dipper felt slightly nervous for the night ahead as he tried to find something decent (or at least clean) to wear for the night. He and Mabel had never really gone on a _date _since they started going out... they'd definitely hung out a lot, spending whole evenings watching old movies together on Dipper's computer while they snuggled in his bed, wasting entire afternoons just talking about the most nonsensical things & occasionally getting involved in one of Mabel's odd art projects_. _Then again they did that sort of stuff together _before_ they were in a relationship (minus all the making out and touching and various other things that snuck their way into those otherwise innocent activities), so he wasn't sure they counted as date type stuff.

_We've been sleeping together for almost two months already and NOW we're going on a first date, and I'm sort of freaking out over it worse than our first time together. There is something seriously weird going on with my brain... _he thought to himself as he inspected himself in the mirror and frowned at the stray curls of hair that stuck out every which way from his head, trying to pat them down.

There was a machine-gun flurry of knocks on his door that shook him out of his wandering train of thought and when he answered the door he saw Mabel standing with an excited grin on her face dressed in a short airy dress of a pastel blue shade with her hair held back by a band of silvery cloth. Little bits of silver jewelry glittered at her ears, wrists and from a thin silver chain hanging around her neck - mostly weird little charms and designs that she'd picked up here and there.

_Well now I definitely feel under-dressed, _Dipper thought in slight panic as he took in the sight of Mabel's somewhat fancy outfit.

"Um... give me a minute - I think I might have something better to wear in here somewhere." Dipper said, turning back to his closet with a feeling of acute embarrassment.

"What's wrong with what you're wearing now?" Mabel asked in confusion.

"I'm not sure it really matches your whole... um... everything." Dipper said lamely.

"C'mon, you look fine." Mabel said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Well you look gorgeous, so I just kinda feel like a slob." Dipper blurted out, coughing slightly to cover his sudden shy feeling.

"Thanks for that," Mabel said with a slight blush, "but I meant what you said about you looking good... stop over thinking the clothes so much - the whole point of a date is having fun, not getting all stressed about shirts."

"Guess I don't really have too much in the way of dating experience to compare this with," Dipper said with a nervous chuckle.

"Anyway the shirt isn't _that _big a deal since I think you look pretty darn good without it," Mabel said with a hugely obvious wink and an overly salacious grin.

"Oh yeah, my 4 or 5 chest hairs just drive all the ladies wild," Dipper said with a roll of his eyes, feeling a little less nervous since he realized that Mabel was still Mabel even in a nice dress and high heels. He wouldn't have it any other way either... her silliness had become extremely dear to him.

"Well, whats the big plan for tonight? Caviar and a moonlight carriage ride? Perhaps some dancing at a fancy club where people wear big shiny masks and talk all Shakespeare-y?" Mabel said teasingly.

"Um... well I've only got about fifty bucks, so that stuff might be a bit outside my price range." Dipper joked.

"That's alright with me - caviar sounds pretty gross anyway." Mabel said with a smile.

"That sounds awfully picky for someone that I once saw eat an entire barrel of sprinkles." Dipper said dryly.

"Yeah, but sprinkles aren't slimy fish eggs doofus." Mabel replied.

"How about burgers and a movie?" Dipper suggested.

"Liking the burger idea, but none of the movies out now look that good. It's all remakes of stuff that got remade last year." Mabel said.

"Do you have any ideas? I'm up for anything." Dipper asked.

"Hmmm... lemme think... oh yeah! There's that new entertainment center that opened up a week ago and I've heard that they've got laser tag!" Mabel said excitedly.

"You honestly think its a good idea to play laser tag in high heels?" Dipper joked.

"I honestly think that I could whoop your smug little butt in laser tag while wearing my fabulous high heels, yes." Mabel said with a confident grin on her face.

"Those sound like betting words sis," Dipper said, feeling his competitive nature rearing its head at the sound of a challenge.

"Loser buys dinner?" Mabel shot back.

"I was going to buy us dinner though," Dipper said.

"Don't worry, you still are," Mabel said smugly, pointing her fingers into guns and miming shooting at Dipper.

He clutched his chest dramatically and sank to his knees as though wounded.

"Ah... I walked right into that one." he said ruefully.

"Dinner and a movie is overrated anyway - how many people get to shoot each other on their first date?" Mabel said cheerfully.

"Ideally not that many," Dipper said.

"I suddenly remembered something important," Mabel said.

"What's that?"

"We haven't gotten to do _this_ yet all day," Mabel replied.

Mabel reached a leg out behind her to catch the edge of the bedroom door on one of her heels and gave it a gentle shove till she heard the latch click shut firmly. She stepped in close, reaching out with her slim bare arms and wrapping then around Dipper's torso to pull him toward her. Dippers arms encircled her shoulders and neck automatically as he leaned in closer to her and pressed his lips to hers. It didn't matter how many times he had kissed Mabel - each time felt special in its own way, and he felt his heart leap in his chest as he took in the scent of her hair, the feel of her warm mouth against his, the taste of her lips and the gentle humming sound as she sighed happily into the kiss.

One of his broad hands traveled along the smooth skin of Mabel's exposed shoulders and down her back while the other stroked its way up her neck, twining his fingers through the curls of her hair and cradling her head against his. Mabel's own deft fingers had worked a few of the buttons loose on his shirt and her soft cool hands were travelling across the bare skin of his chest and back, her nails scratching teasingly along his spine and reminding him vividly of other days and nights when he had felt those same nails digging a little harder into his skin when she was getting close to the edge and almost couldn't stand it anymore.

He wanted her badly right now... feeling her warm and soft against him was sending the blood pounding through his veins, and he pulled Mabel closer against himself and kissed her more deeply in response to that need growing inside him. Mabel moaned happily as Dipper slid his fingers down her spine and then grabbed a firm handful of her butt and started kneading it gently and she nipped his lower lip between her teeth in response. Mabel unbuttoned the final button of Dippers shirt and pressed herself tightly against his now bared chest, her arms winding tightly around his back as she dug her colorful nails into his shoulders. Almost unconsciously Mabel slid her bare leg up between Dipper's and pressed her thigh gently against the bulge she felt growing there, grinning to herself at the happily distracted look that came over his face when she did so.

Unfortunately she wasn't used to balancing entirely on one high heel and she was thrown off balance and ended up stumbling into Dipper's chest, knocking him completely off balance and sending him tumbling backwards to slam his head against his bedroom door while Mabel tumbled down and landed flat across his chest.

"You guy's okay up there?" a parental voice called from downstairs following the loud crash.

"Yeah, nothing hurt but my pride." Dipper called back down as he rubbed the back of his head and winced at the small lump he felt there.

"That didn't go quite as I planned," Mabel said ruefully as she lay sprawled across Dipper's chest on the floor.

"That's fine... right up until the falling down everything was fantastic," Dipper said, giving her a fond smile and reaching out to stroke a hand gently across the curve of her cheek.

"Mmmm... agreed." Mabel whispered, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on Dipper's lips.

"I thought traditionally the kiss happened after the date?" Dipper joked.

"We already break a lot of rules as it is, so why not this one too?" Mabel replied, planting another kiss on Dipper's lips and sighing at the feel of his lips against hers, the beginnings of his scruffy little goatee brushing ticklishly against her chin.

They lay together for a few peaceful moments more before they picked themselves up off the ground and stretched the soreness of the fall out of their muscles. Dipper reached for the door handle before Mabel's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist to stop him. He turned to her in confusion before she reached into her small purse and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped it across Dippers lips to remove the faint traces of lipstick she'd left smeared across them. She gave his face a once over and then gave a satisfactory nod before they headed out together to see what the night had to offer.

* * *

It was much later in the evening now, and a cool night breeze was stirring through the leaves of the trees and blowing the unwelcome noises of city traffic away from the park, leaving the whole area with an almost supernaturally gentle calm. The moon was fat and gold in the deep purple sky, and its light seemed to impart a glow on everything it touched- particularly as it glistened across the rippling surface of the pond that lay at the heart of the park. All that was missing were a few fireflies flitting through the trees and the whole scene would have looked like something from the covers of one of Mabel's favorite romance novels.

The pair were walking hand in hand along the well kept trail that meandered through the park around the lake, leaning in close together and stepping in perfect harmony.

"I still think we should have made it 3 out of 5 games," Dipper grumbled mildly.

"It could have been 51 out of 100 and the results would be the same - Mabel is the queen of laser based violence." Mabel said teasingly, putting a bit of a cocky strut into her walk.

"Pretending you're going to flash me and then shooting me point blank is hardly fair," Dipper pointed out.

"The fact that you fell for that in the first place shows that you don't have the heart of a true laser warrior," Mabel said pertly.

"Humiliating defeat aside I think this dates going pretty well," Dipper said with a smile.

"I think so too," Mabel said with a happy sigh as she leaned into Dipper's arm, "today's gotten a lot better."

"I'd been meaning to ask you... you seemed kind of weirded out today in the cafeteria, what was that all about?" Dipper asked.

"It was nothing really, just something kind of dumb." Mabel replied.

"You sure?" Dipper asked, concern lacing his voice.

"Yeah, its just been kind of a weird day that's all. There was this whole thing about the dance and Sally-" Mabel began.

"Sorry to interrupt, but what's the deal with her anyway? She'd been acting really nice to me out of nowhere for about a week now in Physics class and today all of a sudden she took a seat on the opposite end of the room and kept giving me these looks like I had the Plague or something." Dipper asked.

"Oh... um... I _may _have insinuated that you've got a psycho girlfriend who lives out of state and threatens girls who get close to you with violence all the time." Mabel said sheepishly.

"Why would you do that?" Dipper asked, too confused to be really upset at the odd confession.

"Well she's kind of got a crush on you and was getting all nosy and stuff and I couldn't think of another way to get her away." Mabel confessed with a slightly guilty look on her face, as if he saw her stealing the last cookie from the jar.

"Sally likes me?" Dipper asked in surprise.

"You don't have to sound so thrilled about it." Mabel said in a slightly grumpy tone.

"Wait, were you _jealous_? Is that why you made up that whole crazy thing?" Dipper asked, a wide grin splitting his face.

"What? No, come on." Mabel said with a dismissive gesture.

"You _were_ totally jealous! That's adorable." Dipper said gleefully.

"Ugh, okay so maybe I was just a little jealous... why make such a big thing about it?" Mabel asked with a pout.

"Hey, I've never had a girl be jealous over me before - just let me bask in this a little." Dipper said in a playful tone.

"Sally also told me that Zack was thinking of asking _me_ to the Spring dance." Mabel said in a too-casual voice.

"That meat-headed oaf?" Dipper said flatly.

"Well he's kind of a cute meat-headed oaf don't you think? I spotted him hanging out around my locker after class looking in like he was in a flirty kind of mood." Mabel said with a grin of her own.

"Okay, fine - jealousy isn't that funny." Dipper said through gritted teeth.

"I don't know, it looks pretty funny from where I'm standing." Mabel replied cheekily.

"What did you do about him?" Dipper asked, trying hard not to sound _too _curious about her response and failing miserably.

"Nothing, I gave him the slip and snuck out of the school without him managing to ask me anything." Mabel said.

"What would you have done if he'd succeeded in asking you out?"

"I dunno... I probably would have thought of something. Maybe told him I've got some sort of crazy disease? Oh, or that I joined a cult that forbids dancing!" Mabel said excitedly.

"You could just do a simple '_No thanks_' - there's really no need to get all elaborate. I mean, that's what I would have done if your friend had gotten more direct with her flirting." Dipper said dryly.

"Yeah, but my way would probably hurt his feelings less." Mabel said.

"I guess so." Dipper said.

"Anyway that's all in the past now and we'll never have to worry about it again." Mabel said confidently.

"Until Monday that is." Dipper replied.

"Pffft, that's like a million hours away. Right now is _us_ time!" Mabel said as she wrapped her arms around Dipper's chest for a bone-crushingly tight hug.

"I honestly didn't even know there was a dance coming up," Dipper gasped as he tried to suck some air back into his lungs.

"Seriously? There are huge posters and banners all over the school for it. You helped me makeone of them a few weeks ago." Mabel said.

"When did I do that?" Dipper asked in confusion.

"Remember - you were helping me with the glitter and the glue and stuff in my room... you know, that time when we ended up spilling it by accident on your shirt-" Mabel began.

"-which lead to your brilliant idea to work naked '_So we don't mess up our clothes' -_" Dipper added with a faraway look on his face as he started to recall the incident more clearly.

"-which eventually lead to us kind of... um... doing it on top of the banner..." Mabel said with a grin at the memory.

"I think I can remember that now... though the sex part kind of made me forget about the original idea of working on the banner to be honest. It took me a week to wash all the glitter off myself." Dipper said.

"At least I was able to convince the rest of the art club that the big glitter covered handprints all over the poster were an intentional part of the design." Mabel said.

"Anyway what was the thing about the dance again?" Dipper said, shaking his head to try and clear his mind from the memory of that particular afternoon.

"It was just Sally bugging me about the dance, asking if I was going to take anyone and it kind of freaked me out a little and I ended up rushing out of the cafeteria and probably making a giant spectacle of myself." Mabel said.

"When have you ever minded being a spectacle?" Dipper teased.

"I like being a _fun _spectacle you jerk - not a weird dramatic one." she added with a pout.

"Why would the dance thing freak you out so much though?" Dipper said.

"I don't know... it just got me thinking about how we've been together... you know, _together _together for a long while now... but we can't do simple junk like that. I just got a little bummed about it." Mabel said.

"Oh." Dipper said quietly.

"Hey, don't get too worried about it - it was a passing little feeling... I don't _ever _think about that kind of junk when we're actually together." Mabel said.

"So it doesn't really bother you that much that we can't go to the dance?" Dipper asked.

"Well... not that much no." Mabel said. "It might have still been nice though..." she added with a sigh.

"You think so?" Dipper asked, with a sinking feeling in his chest.

"Yeah... I mean, it would be fun to wear a way-too-fancy dress and drink punch and dance together to a bunch of old songs and see you get all dolled up in a tux that doesn't fit right and..." Mabel said, her voice trailing off as she saw the odd look come over Dippers face.

"You've thought about this a lot haven't you?" Dipper said.

"Kind of yeah... I mean... there have been like, 2 or 3 dances since we started going out and obviously we haven't really gotten to go to any of them." Mabel said.

"Well, I never really went to any of the ones before we started going out either... I guess I never noticed since I'm just not much of a dance kind of guy." Dipper said.

Dipper had slowed down his pace and Mabel slowed as well. She was really worried that she'd said something to hurt his feelings... tonight had been going so well and now that stupid dance thing had come up again and now it was even bringing Dipper down. She felt a little stab of guilt, hoping that he wasn't too freaked out about this... she wanted to reassure him that none of it mattered... that her night with him had been better than any dance she'd ever gone to but she felt the words stick in her throat.

Dipper pulled back gently from her grip and turned to face her, and Mabel felt her heart catch in her throat with tension.

"May I have this dance?" Dipper asked suddenly, holding his hand out to her as he made an exaggerated courtly bow.

"What are you doing?" Mabel asked, quirking her brow but feeling a confused smile begin to tug at the corner of her mouth.

"Trying to be cute and sucking at it." Dipper said with a shy smile.

"I think you're doing pretty good actually," Mabel said with a relieved giggle, placing her hand in his and gliding in closer to him.

Dipper's sneakers scraped against the rough rocky dirt of the parks walking trail as they shuffled and danced together, their right hands joined and their left resting on each others waists. They moved clumsily at first, but soon they began to read each others movements and work in tune, swaying and stepping with near perfect rhythm under the dappled light of the moon filtering through the leaves above them. Dipper felt his heartbeat quicken at the sight of Mabel's eyes wide with happiness, marveling as he often did at just how much he loved the sight of her smile. He pulled her in close then and leaned her back in his arm, dipping her gently as he moved his lips against hers for a warm kiss. His dipping technique could have used some work, but Mabel wouldn't have had anything bad to say about the kissing judging from the happy sigh she gave and the way she raised her foot off the ground like a heroine in a romantic comedy. This time though she didn't fall.

"That was fun," Mabel said happily when they finally broke the kiss. They stayed standing together, arms around one another's waists and swaying gently in the soft night breeze.

"I imagine going to the dance would be like that, except that there would be a lame DJ playing a bunch of radio-edit versions of songs and we wouldn't be allowed to kiss at the end... so I say our dance here is better." Dipper said.

"Mmmm.. well anything that allows for more kissing is good in my book," Mabel purred happily in response.

He bent low over her face again and pressed his lips to hers, his fingers twining through the silken curls of her hair. She pressed herself to him warmly, her mouth hot against his and her nails dancing in a maddeningly pleasurable way along the sensitive skin of his neck.

"For a guy who says he doesn't do much dancing you seemed pretty dance-y to me just a few minutes ago," Mabel said with a grin as she planted a warm smooch on Dipper's cheek, "so maybe you just needed the right dance partner."

"Maybe so," Dipper said with a smile of his own.

"You're right about going to the real dance though... I mean, we'd be able to go and drink the punch and wear the clothes and stuff but slowdancing together would probably be out of the question." Mabel said.

"It probably would." Dipper said, feeling suddenly awkward again.

"Blargh, sorry this is sucky date night conversation." Mabel said with a pout.

"We could always dance some more if you don't feel like talking." Dipper said mildly.

"I shouldn't bring up stuff like this and then complain that it got brought up." Mabel sighed.

"Out of curiosity, what's my crazy girlfriends name supposed to be anyway?" Dipper asked, eager to divert Mabel away from her gloomy thoughts.

"Why would that be important?" Mabel asked guiltily.

"You know, in case anyone tries to check up on your story by asking me? That's like lying 101." Dipper said.

"Oh... um... well her name is... Wendy," Mabel said shyly.

Dipper froze and stared at Mabel blankly for a moment.

"Let's just make sure the real Wendy never hears about this little deception of yours or else she _really_ might come after both of us with an axe." he said.

"Agreed." Mabel said with an emphatic nod.

They came to a bend in the track that was close to the lake and paused to admire the beauty of the light reflecting on the water like a rippling wave of golden sparks.

"Alright, so our schools dance is kind of off limits... but if you really wanted to go to _a _dance though, we might be able to do that." Dipper said, an idea that had been bubbling in the back of his head suddenly becoming more clear as he stared at the pond.

"What do you mean?" Mabel asked.

"I'm friends with a guy who goes to a school in a different district... I met him in the county science fair competition. He mentioned that he was having a hard time finding a date for a dance that was happening at his school last time we were chatting." Dipper said.

"And?" Mabel said.

"Well, maybe he can find a way to sneak us in to his school's dance. No one there would know who we are, so we could drink the punch and wear the fancy clothes and slowdance till our feet fell off and no one would be able to say anything about it. We'd just be two strangers to everyone there." Dipper said.

"Do you really think it would work?" Mabel asked, feeling a little pulse of excitement in her chest about the idea.

"It can't hurt to try... what do you think?" Dipper asked.

"I think I'd like that." Mabel said, turning to Dipper and giving him a 10,000 watt smile.

She couldn't contain her excitement about the idea any longer and leaped at Dipper, giving him a bear hug and showering his face with happy kisses. She felt her heart flutter joyfully in her chest when his arms wound around her and pulled her in close, practically lifting her off the ground.

_He always tries to find a way for me... always fights hard to see that nothing hurts me... to see that I'm happy... and I'd do anything to see him happy too. He's my absolute favorite person in the world..._

_That's why this is going to work. It doesn't matter that what we have is taboo or forbidden or any of that junk. It doesn't matter that we'll have to hide this forever, or that no one else would ever accept this. So what if it goes against the laws of nature and also probably the laws of police?_

_All that matters is that he's my Dipper and I'm his Mabel, and as long as we each have that then we'll be fine._

_Better than fine, _Mabel thought happily as she pressed her lips to Dipper's once again and sighed happily into his mouth.

_Perfect._


	8. Chapter 8

"I can't believe we've had to spend our last 2 study-dates _actually _studying," Mabel groaned as she slumped forward onto the jumbled pile of notes and books spread across her bed.

Dipper glanced up at her from his spot scrunched up against the wall on her bed, awkwardly wedged on top of a pile of cushions and stuffed animals.

"Well if we had spent some of the other ones before them doing _any _studying we probably wouldn't need to be cramming so hard for our finals right now," he said with an exasperated shrug before he turned back to his Calculus notes, clicking his pen in annoyance as he struggled to remember _anything_ from the past few lectures in that class.

"I didn't hear you complaining about the lack of studying when we were smooching up a storm last week," Mabel said archly, a smug grin on her face.

Dipper coughed slightly and turned back to his notes once again, not really sure how to respond. _Obviously_ he didn't regret the aforementioned hurricane of smooches, but he couldn't deny that his grades had been sliding downhill from their former peak of excellence and he wanted to try and put a stop to that trend before it got any worse... and that unfortunately meant cutting into some of their precious alone time to cram in some extra school work. Naturally this had made them both a little more irritable than normal, but they'd tried to hide their frustration as best they could from each other. It hadn't kept them from snapping at each other back and forth for most of the afternoon though and the atmosphere in the room was starting to become uncomfortable as a result of it.

Mabel sighed and scrunched her face into a frown as she turned her eyes back to the 3 textbooks that glared up at her expectantly from the bed: English, History and of course her old nemesis Math. Hours of endless boring MATH on a Saturday afternoon that could have been spent in a trillion better ways... some of the best being clothing-optional.

"Math on a Saturday... are you sure I'm not just having a nightmare right now? Because this feels a lot like one of my usual nightmares." Mabel said hopefully, hoping a little humor might lighten things up.

"I _wish_ my nightmares were that mild," Dipper replied dryly.

"What are your nightmares usually like?" Mabel asked, turning back toward him with an expression of interest.

"Terrifying, but can we hold off on probing my damaged brain until after we're finished? I feel like I've been at this for hours and I can't remember most of what I've been reading," Dipper said, his voice sinking to a frustrated growl as he stared uncomprehendingly at his notebook.

Half of what he'd written down there didn't seem to connect with the other half of his notes. Some of the example equations just trailed off without any solution being presented and he noticed a small crude picture of Mabel's face that he'd drawn in the corner of the last page. He felt his ears redden at the sight of the portrait - partly from how poorly he'd drawn it but mostly from the fact that he, Dipper Pines of the nearly-straight A's and various academic awards, had apparently let himself slip so far from his normal standards that he'd begun to _doodle_.

_Being in love is pretty great but it's definitely been rough on my grades... maybe that's why Mabel always had trouble with this stuff since she used to have so many crushes all the time? Or maybe its just that I suck at being in love since I can't seem to get my brain to focus on anything else but her for more than 10 minutes? Was I like this around Wendy?  
_

_Who am I kidding, I was probably even worse around Wendy since I was just a kid with my first crush then...  
_

Dippers pessimistic train of thought was forced off the tracks when Mabel spoke suddenly, snapping him back to reality.

"Maybe its time for us to take a little break? We _have _been at this for hours and my eyeballs hurt from staring at these books - plus I think that I'm starting to get my subjects mixed up here. I could have sworn I just read something about Nixon inventing imaginary numbers to use in one of his love poems." Mabel said in a more calm tone of voice, slightly concerned at the look of frustration that had started to spread across Dipper's face.

"We've only got a week to go before the exams though - I don't want to risk flunking high school just because I got lazy at the final stretch." Dipper said in quiet annoyance.

"Bro, you aren't going to flunk out - you just got a 'C' on _one _test last week, that doesn't mean you need to go completely pants-on-head cray cray here." Mabel said, sliding up to a sitting position and reaching out to place a comforting hand on Dippers shoulder.

Dipper felt some of the tension knotted up inside himself start to unwind at the feel of Mabel's friendly grip. He lolled his head to the side and rubbed his slightly stubbly cheek against the soft skin of her hand and smiled quietly to himself when he heard her giggle from the ticklish sensation.

"Sorry if I haven't been a lot of fun to be around lately - I've never really had to go into panic mode about my classes before and I guess its kind of got me a little irritable," he admitted quietly.

"No need to apologize, you've helped me out a lot with this stuff before... heck, that's kind of how we ended up getting together in the first place if you'll recall." Mabel said with an impish grin.

"I'm really hoping that there was more to our relationship than the fact that I was willing to give you a little tutoring," Dipper said wryly.

"Well of course there is," Mabel said as she leaned in to plant a soft kiss on his forehead, "but it did help a little bit."

"And you used to say that all my studying and stuff would never help me get girls," Dipper joked, reaching out a hand to stroke Mabel's cheek affectionately.

"It helped you get _a_ girl_- _singular, not plural. You're still a big nerd though." Mabel corrected him, sticking her tongue out at Dipper playfully.

Dipper rolled his eyes and then impulsively tossed his half-useless notebook onto the pile of books and papers that lay scattered across the bed and reached out his arm to pull Mabel in close to him, eliciting a squeak of surprise when he planted his lips firmly against hers. She wasn't caught off guard for long though, and her own arms quickly snaked around his neck to hold him firmly against her while she pulled him deeper into the kiss. They rolled back and forth across the crinkling layers of paper underneath them, half making out and half wrestling like rambunctious children.

"I thought Mr. Serious wasn't interested in fun anymore - what was all that stuff earlier about needing to study?" Mabel said challengingly when she'd managed to roll Dipper onto his back and was sitting firmly on his chest. Her cheeks were flushed from more than just simple exhaustion after their play-fight and her eyes were wide.

Dipper felt his heart beating hard in his chest. Studying didn't seem quite as important at this moment as the warm weight of the girl straddling his torso.

"Well, you _had _said that it was a good time for a break..." Dipper replied, half trying to convince himself of his own words as one of his hands slid up along the smooth skin of Mabel's bare thigh.

_It's not like grades are everything... and it really was just one C._

_My first C ever though._

_Right before Finals. The FINAL finals that I'm ever going to take._

_Goddammit._

Dipper breathed a heavy sigh out through his nose and slid his hand off from Mabel's leg, balling it up into a fist and lightly tapping it against his own hip instead of exploring further as he'd originally intended.

"Maybe it's really not a good time though... I mean... I _really_ want to take a break with you, but this is kind of the whole reason that I've been doing bad in the first place." Dipper said hesitantly.

Mabel's expression shifted from surprise to disappointment and finally to anger in an instant and she glared down at Dipper in response.

"So you're saying its _my _fault that you haven't been captain super-nerd with the perfect grades lately?" she asked, her fists on her hips.

Mabel would probably have looked more intimidating if she hadn't still been straddling Dipper's torso - as it was he wasn't really sure whether he found the sight scary or slightly hot.

"No, I'm not saying it's your fault - its mine for not being able to focus on my work in class... I mean, other guys manage to have girlfriends without their grades going to hell." Dipper said, trying to do a little damage control as quickly as he could.

"Going to hell? It was ONE C. Seriously - just one. It's not like a C is the end of the world either - I get C's all the time and you don't see me going crazy about it." Mabel said grumpily as she scooted herself off of him and settled back down onto the bed.

"Well I don't get C's so forgive me for freaking out a little!" Dipper said angrily, instantly regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth.

Mabel turned to him, a look of shock on her face and tears starting to well up in the corners of her eyes.

"Maybe you'd be happier studying in your own room then!" Mabel said angrily, clenching the muscles in her jaw to keep it from quivering into a sob.

"Wait! I didn't mean anything by that - I mean... you know... I'm sorry for making a big deal out of this-" Dipper began, reaching out a hand to her which was slapped aside.

"Get out." Mabel said quietly, turning away from him.

Dipper felt his breath catch in his throat. This was bad. He'd fucked up bad.

_How do I fix this?_

No ideas came to mind, and he wordlessly gathered up his notes and textbooks and slouched off toward his room. When the latch on Mabel's door clicked shut behind him he tried to pretend that he couldn't hear her starting to cry.

It didn't work.

* * *

Predictably, Dipper didn't manage to get any studying done while he sat brooding in his room wondering what Mabel was thinking. The longer he thought the more he realized just exactly what he'd done wrong and it left him feeling worse and worse.

Mabel had never been at the top of her non-art classes. It wasn't that she wasn't smart by any means - she was just as bright as her brother, but school work didn't come easily to her. Tests, homework, reports - they all bored Mabel to tears and she always had trouble focusing on them unless she made a huge effort. C's weren't uncommon in her report cards, and she'd always been a little jealous of the praise Dipper had gotten from their parents for his high grades and awards in class.

He'd never made a big deal about his achievements though - not to her. He'd never, EVER treated her like she wasn't as smart as him or belittled her grades... but here he was saying that because he'd dropped down to _her_ level just one time that it was unacceptable. Like he'd failed himself or something for being like her.

_Why had I made such a big deal out of this in the first place? It's almost the end of the year and I've made A's and B's in all my classes from day one till last week... I could probably bomb my finals completely and still manage a passing grade... not that I'd want to put that particular theory to a test of course._

_I mean... I DO like getting high grades, I can't deny that... it feels good to see my name at the top of something since I wasn't ever the most popular or athletic guy... or even in the top ten of those categories. Or top 20 probably... especially the popularity one. Alright, so maybe the whole reason really is just pride - plain and simple. I liked being the best at something... I wish I had tried explaining that instead of just snapping at Mabel like that.. ugh... she must think I'm a complete jackass._

_I'd agree with her right now if she did._

He leaned back into his bed and stared up at the ceiling in disappointment with how the day had gone. Today hadn't come out of nowhere though... it was a symptom of the tension that had been coiling up unpleasantly in Dipper's gut now for a while. Time had been racing by in a blur over the past few weeks, dragging Dipper and Mabel along into its hectic flow - the way it always seemed to do whenever the year was drawing to a close. This year seemed especially fast though, and as the days had turned to weeks Dipper had been feeling a pressure grow in his chest at the thought that this was going to be _it. _The end of high school. The end of living at home. The beginning of the rest of his life and whatever it was going to bring.

When the year had begun he'd been excited for the prospect of all of that, but the closer it came to becoming a reality the more uneasy he felt. Unlike a lot of the things that bothered him he had never brought this particular worry up to Mabel though... partially because some of the worry centered around her, or at least around his relationship with her. The uncertainty of the future had started to get to him. Would they still be together after graduation? Would they end up drifting off to different campuses and losing touch? Would that connection that had grown between them weaken? Would she even want to still be with him at all after that fight they'd just had?

They'd never had a fight the whole time they were together... not a real fight anyway, just their usual sibling tussles over control of the TV remote or who got to drive the van or dumb things like that. Everything had just gone so _perfect _for them that the way he'd hurt Mabel's feelings earlier seemed to stand out like an open wound in his mind against the otherwise rosy memories of the past few months.

_It usually takes a lot to get Mabel that upset though... maybe she's also been feeling tense lately if something that minor got her so worked up? Or maybe it didn't seem that minor to her... ugh, she's the closest person in the world to me and sometimes I still can't figure out what she's thinking._

Almost out of reflex Dipper reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone, checking the screen for any sign that Mabel might have texted or called him in the hours since he'd been ejected from her room. Maybe he'd been so distracted from wallowing in guilt that he might not have noticed? Maybe all was forgiven and he could go back to hanging out with her right now without any awkwardness?

Zero missed calls. No incoming texts.

_No such luck_.

He considered sending her a text of his own, but every time he started writing it just seemed to come out wrong and he ended up deleting the whole thing. He gave up after about ten minutes of failed attempts and was going to angrily toss the phone down on the bed before he was seized by a sudden impulse instead.

Dipper slid his thumb across the surface of the touch-screen, flipping through the various tabs until he found the image folder. Before he'd started his relationship with Mabel he hadn't really had any use for the camera on his phone - it had actually always seemed kind of silly to him. Mabel hadn't lost her love of scrap-booking and documenting her life through colorful pictures over the years though and since she couldn't exactly make an album full of pictures of her and Dipper together without risking it being discovered she had resorted to keeping her album completely digital, and she'd insisted that Dipper join in... if only to have his phone as backup in case something happened to hers.

He'd grumbled a bit about it at first - his own memory had always been fine, why bother to take so many pictures? It was funny though - he'd found himself glancing back at the album more and more often as time went on. There was something about seeing the shots that they had taken together that made his memories seem crisper than normal - more _real_ than they were when he was just playing them back in his own head. The longer he looked at a picture the more those little details that he'd otherwise forgotten would jump out from the screen and trigger whole new cascades of memory.

Despite all his worry he smiled to himself in the darkness of the room, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the screen as he paged through the digital album. He paused briefly at a shot of him and Mabel washing the former family van after it had been officially given to them by their parents once their mother had bought a brand new car for herself. It had been the last nice day of the Spring before the California heat had moved in over the town full force - Mabel wore her usual grin as well as an old t-shirt and a distractingly short pair of cut-offs, and Dipper wore about eleven billion gallons of water from the hose fight that he'd clearly lost a few minutes before the shot was taken.

_Of course I couldn't blast her back - with a shirt that thin the neighbors would have gotten one hell of a free show if I got it wet._

He flipped to the next screen and found the image that he'd been looking for - a shot of the pair at the dance they'd attended last month. He'd had to call in a favor from a friend in another school district to get access to the event, but it had been worth it for just how happy the whole night had made Mabel. She had worn an incredibly fancy dress made from some sort of shimmering purple fabric and trimmed with flowing ribbons of golden satin, and Dipper had even managed to look a little formal himself in a nice button up shirt. He'd even gone the whole evening without a hat of any kind, leaving his birthmarked forehead bare for the world to see. No one was there but strangers that he was going to see for only one night of his life, so he could stand the shame.

The dance had been both more and less magical than Dipper had been expecting. The music was just as lame as he had predicted it would be and most of the teachers chaperoning the event had given the twins strange looks since they couldn't recognize them, but the fake school ID's that Mabel had forged looked convincing enough in the dim mood-lighting to be given a pass and no one really hassled them afterwards. They had drank the punch, Dipper had miraculously managed not to step on Mabel's toes at all as they had slow danced together under the colored spotlights lights of the strange schools gym & at the end of the night when the last song was being played they shared a kiss together that was witnessed only by the few remaining students who hadn't already left and by the disapproving chaperons who quickly hustled them out of the building for "inappropriate conduct".

It was a completely mundane experience that millions of high school couples across the country had lived through before and that millions more would live through in the future... but the fact that it felt so _normal _had just made the night for Mabel, and Dipper had felt his heart leap in his chest at the sight of her ecstatic grin when they walked out into the damp night air on their way back to their newly acquired van.

_After a night like that we wouldn't break up just because of one little fight, right? _

Dipper gave the dance picture one last look and then flipped back to text mode. He was the one who'd made the mistake - he'd have to be the one to try and fix it.

_Dipper: _Sorry about earlier.

_Dipper: _I was an ass.

_Dipper: _Love you.

He waited for a few minutes but the phone stayed silent and tension slumped into disappointment.

_Way to go Pines. _

* * *

A bright chiming sound shattered the silence of the night a few feet from Dipper's head. Bleary eyes peeled open as he was pulled out from his dream and he turned to see the glow of his phone beckoning him from the nightstand. He clumsily fumbled his arm out and caught hold of the buzzing device on the third try and pulled it to him.

_Text message? Who's texting me at... 2 AM?... Jesus._

He tapped the screen and opened the little dancing animated envelope icon that Mabel had installed on his phone when he'd left it unattended for a few minutes about a month ago. So far he hadn't been able to find a way to get rid of the annoying cartoon character since she'd also changed his password and had refused to give it back to him.

_Mabel_: U awake

Dipper felt a surge of nervousness at the message. He hadn't seen her since their fight earlier that day and he wasn't sure the best way to respond. She must have already seen his earlier messages, right? Would it be pathetic to say he was sorry again? Deciding against a further apology, he went for something casual.

_Dipper: _Yeah. What's up?

He leaned back into his pillows and held the phone loosely in his hand, trying not to drift off back into sleep before he felt the phone buzz once again in his fingers.

_Mabel: _Cant sleep.

Dipper rubbed his sore eyes and glared blearily at the phone screen.

_Dipper: _Is this a bad dreams kind of can't sleep?

_Mabel: _Not really its a too much thinking kind of cant sleep

_Dipper: _Thinking about what?

There was a long pause between replies and Dipper felt somewhat worried that he'd said something wrong again. Was _anything_ going to go his way today? Halfway into another self-pity laced thought he felt his phone buzz in his hand and glanced down at the glowing screen.

_Mabel: _Can I come over? Texting isn't as good as talking

Dipper hesitated... it was really late and that would definitely look bad if their parents woke up and found them together. He really wanted to patch things up with her though, and some things mattered a lot more to him than his paranoia.

_Dipper: _Sure

_Mabel: _K be there in a minute

Dipper lay back in his bed, feeling a sense of nervous anticipation building in him. His ears strained in the dark and after a few minutes he heard the faint creak of a door opening down the hall and the very soft tread of footsteps along the carpet. His bedroom door was pushed open without a creak, but Dipper still felt his heart start to pound hard in his chest regardless. He'd never had Mabel in his room this late at night... well, not since they were young enough to still have completely innocent sibling room sleepovers anyway,... and every sound seemed a thousand times louder here in the darkness of his bedroom than it would have during the daytime. He caught sight of Mabel silhouetted against the frame of the door wearing a long nightshirt and with her long hair adorably tousled from rolling back and forth across her pillows.

"You sure this is okay?" Mabel stage whispered to him, sounding slightly more nervous than Dipper was used to hearing.

Dipper swallowed the last of his paranoia. _Play it cool... _

"Yeah, come on in - just shut the door quietly," he whispered back more loudly than he had hoped to.

The door shut without a click, throwing the room into darkness once again but Dipper switched on the small reading lamp he kept on the table next to his bed and motioned Mabel over. Wordlessly she tip-toed across his bedroom floor, dodging the minefield of unwashed clothes, discarded books & various other odds and ends before she reached his bed. Dipper sat up and threw back the blankets, offering her a space beside him. He felt his heart catch in his throat when she hesitated, but she did slide in next to him and the two lay awkwardly side by side on their backs, not quite meeting each others eyes.

"Sorry for earlier," Dipper began, "I was an ass."

"I know - I got your texts," Mabel said. Dipper felt her small warm hand reach out and find his and felt relief flood his entire body when she gave it a small squeeze. "I'm sorry too. I might have overreacted a little bit when I blew up at you earlier."

"Its alright... I just really need to start thinking before I open my mouth," Dipper said quietly, squeezing her fingers back gently.

"It really wasn't a big deal... I mean... I know you weren't actually calling me dumb or anything... I guess all the studying lately had just gotten me stressed out and that was the last straw." Mabel said. "Plus I guess I was already kind of mad at you since you were being a giant butt all day,"

"Well, maybe I was _kind of_ a butt yeah... but a giant one?" Dipper asked, mock hurt in his voice.

"Oh yeah, a huge butt. Guinness records level butt." Mabel continued, her voice becoming lighter as she elaborated.

"Are we okay?" Dipper asked suddenly, feeling a prickle on the back of his neck as the words left his mouth.

_So much for thinking before I speak._

Mabel turned to face him, and Dipper was relieved to see a small smile on the corners of her mouth.

"Of course... I mean, it was just a little fight. It's not the end of the world or anything Dippingsauce." she said.

Dipper breathed out a sigh of genuine relief. Suddenly the universe seemed just a little bit brighter than it had earlier in that long afternoon.

_Maybe it was crazy of me to think that one fight meant the end... but in my defense I'm still not super experienced at this stuff. _

"So what were you thinking about that couldn't let you get to sleep?" Dipper asked, hoping to change the subject and move things on further from the fight as soon as possible.

Mabel reddened slightly and her eyes drifted off to the side.

"Well... I guess I was also worried if we were okay. I was embarrassed about getting so mad this afternoon and I didn't know what to say. That's why I never answered you back earlier." she said, her voice somewhat hesitant.

Dipper reached out and arm and pulled wrapped it gently around Mabel's waist to pull her into a hug, feeling relieved and happy at the feel of her warmth squeezing against him. She gave a contented sigh and buried her face into his neck, but Dipper felt an odd sharp feeling near his chest and heard something crinkle strangely. He pulled back in confusion and noticed that Mabel's nightshirt had a small pocket on the chest and he spotted something poking out from it. He reached out for the object but Mabel quickly slapped a hand down over the pocket and blushed a little brighter.

"What's that you got there sis?" Dipper asked, half-guessing the answer.

"Nothing. Never you mind." Mabel said, her mouth screwing up into a cute pout.

"Really? Because it looked sort of familiar... almost like a con-" Dipper began teasingly.

"I only brought it just in case... you know... if there was going to be any.. um... make-up... stuff." Mabel said.

"Ah," Dipper said, feeling a blush start to spread through his own face at the idea. "Um... had you been anticipating any kind of make-up... stuff?"

"Well... I don't know... it never hurts to be prepared." Mabel said.

They sat in a slightly embarrassed silence for a few seconds before Dipper leaned in close and planted a small kiss on Mabel's cheek.

"You're pretty cute when you get all flustered like that," he said with just a slight hint of teasing in his voice.

"Oh shut up... you should see your face when we're in the middle of sexy times - its hilarious." Mabel shot back.

"Alright, alright - I'm backing off... any kind of sexy times is probably just theoretical right now anyway." Dipper said jokingly.

Mabel gave a small nod in response.

"Is it cool if I stay here a bit more though? We didn't really get to spend any time together today and it kind of got me all grumped out." she said.

"I'd like that," Dipper replied happily.

Mabel quickly busied herself piling up pillows and rearranging blankets to her comfort and then settled in next to Dipper, breathing out a sigh of contentment once she'd finally gotten everything arranged to her convenience.

"What we're we even fighting about earlier? I mean, it's the end of the year... this is normally the time that we'd be celebrating already." Mabel said.

"I don't know, I guess I was just stressing out about a lot of things... the grades were just a tiny part of it." Dipper replied.

"What sort of stuff?" Mabel asked, concern lacing through her voice.

Dipper hesitated... he'd never really had to put this odd latent ball of fear that had lodged itself in his chest into words before and it took a while to try and find a way to express it. He finally settled on the simplest part of it all and opened with a question.

"Well, do you ever wonder about the future?" Dipper asked.

"Sometimes yeah," Mabel said with a nod.

"What sort of stuff do you wonder about?" Dipper asked in an interested tone.

"Robots mostly – like, are they ever going to be a thing or is it all just movie stuff?" Mabel replied, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

"I wasn't really thinking about the robot kind of future when I asked that question," Dipper said dryly.

"Clones then? Because that one seems a lot more likely to me," Mabel said playfully.

"I was thinking more about our immediate future really," Dipper replied, "you know, like when the last day of school finally rolls around and its time for us to graduate. The post-high school sort of future."

"Oh," Mabel said, "well yeah, of course I have... I mean, its kind of hard not to with all the big graduation banners and posters and stuff all over the school,"

"Is it just me or did they start putting that stuff up around the hallways earlier than usual this year?" Dipper asked, distracted in spite of himself.

"I know, right? It's like they can't wait to get rid of us or something." Mabel said, her voice loaded with mock indignation.

"It seems kind of excessive to me, I mean it's not like we were even a really bad class or anything." Dipper said.

"Weeelll... there _was_ all that stuff that you ended up doing when we we're sophomores with the weird talismans and junk that you'd brought back from Grunkle Stan's." Mabel replied, prodding Dipper in a playfully accusing manner.

"I eventually fixed everything that I broke with that stuff!" Dipper objected, "No one but you and me even remembers half the things that happened that year anyway."

_Possibly because of that mass memory altering incantation that I found in the back of the journal to make the rest of the school forget about that stuff... especially the homecoming disaster.  
_

_I really hope there weren't any serious long term effects from that... I'd hate to think I was the one responsible for the all time low test scores from that year. Just how much had they ended up forgetting anyway?  
_

"I know, I'm just busting your chops bro," Mabel said as she leaned in close to plant a soothing kiss on his cheek.

Dipper couldn't stay annoyed after feeling her warm lips pressed affectionately to his skin, and he snaked an arm out around her waist and pulled her in close to him for a hug. He wordlessly buried his face in the crook of Mabel's neck to just breath in her scent and try to release some of the ugly tension that had been weighing down on him throughout the day. She seemed to sense his feelings despite his silence and ran her fingers soothingly through his hair and hummed gently deep in her chest, her own arms circling his shoulders and holding him close to her.

"Do you know what college you want to go to after graduation?" Dipper asked, his voice muffled slightly by how closely his mouth was pressed to Mabel's neck. He punctuated his sentence by placing a gentle kiss on the bit of collarbone peeking out from her over-large nightshirt, sending a pleasant tingle through her skin.

"I dunno... never gave it too much thought," Mabel replied honestly as she continued to stroke her hands over Dippers hair, one hand trailing down lower to run her fingernails gently down his spine in that way she knew he liked. "Somewhere that I can study art I guess, but most schools have an art program don't they?"

"A lot of them do yeah," Dipper said, raising his head up to look at Mabel's face. Her eyes looked lovely in the starlight filtering in through his half-open window blinds and the soft yellow light from his reading lamp gave her skin a golden glow.

"What college do you want to go to?" Mabel asked, temporarily snapping him out of his admiring reverie.

"I haven't given it too much thought either," Dipper said with a shrug of his own.

"What? That's impossible – you're constantly thinking about this kind of future stuff! You're probably more responsible than most of our adult relatives." Mabel said in a tone of genuine, though quiet, surprise.

"Well okay, I _had_ given it some thought before," Dipper admitted, "but I didn't have any definite ideas. I mean, that was before we started going out... and when we did get together I didn't really know where things were going with us or what I was doing at the start... but the longer it went on the happier I got... and... well... I didn't want to start just planning out _my _future by myself... I wanted to plan a future... with you."

"Oh," Mabel said, a small catch in her voice, "um...wow..."

The room was quiet except for the teens hushed breathing and Dipper felt the sweat start to bead on his forehead. _Why had I said that? Why now? Why on the day when we've just had a big fight and she called me a Guinness Record level butt? What is she thinking? Did I go too far? Is the future stuff too much? Did I just creep her out? Can I pull back from this? Have I screwed it all up? What do I say?_

"Look, I'm sorry if me mentioning future stuff is creepy or anything, I may have overesti-" Dipper began before his voice was silenced by Mabel jamming her lips against his and pulling his face tightly against hers for a suffocating kiss.

Dipper's response was all instinct and he kissed Mabel back with a heat that matched hers, his hands roaming automatically from the curls of her hair and down her back and sides.

She broke the kiss and gave him a long look, her eyes wide and glistening oddly in the light filtering in through the window blinds.

"It wasn't creepy," she said as a small smile started to tug at the corners of her mouth. "It was sweet."

"Yeah?" Dipper had asked.

"Of course yeah... I want there to be an _us _after we're done with school... and it's nice to know that you've been thinking about it too." Mabel replied.

"What had you been thinking?" Dipper asked.

"I'd just kind of assumed that we'd end up going to the same school... maybe even get an apartment together if we could manage it." Mabel said.

"So you'd never worried about us going to different campuses or drifting apart or anything?" Dipper said.

"Never crossed my mind," Mabel said only slightly dishonestly.

"That's good to hear." Dipper said, feeling somewhat lost but definitely happy.

She smiled fully at his slightly puzzled expression and leaned into him for another kiss, purring happily into his mouth as her hands sought out his and twined their fingers tightly together. Dipper felt his heart start to beat hard at the feel of her soft curves pressing up against him, her body feeling hot to the touch even through her huge colorful nightshirt. They moved in closer, her body molding against his and sending his heart racing in his chest as her long smooth legs tangled up with his, rubbing against his bare skin in an extremely distracting way. His own hands slipped out from Mabel's and toyed with the hem of her long shirt before he decided to go for it and slipped them up under the garment, roaming against the soft warm skin hidden under it. He discovered, with a not unpleasant shock, that the shirt was apparently the only thing that Mabel was wearing at the moment. Mabel hummed encouragingly into his mouth as his hands explored her and her own hands slid up along his back, her nails trailing up over his shoulders and along his spine in an extremely interesting way, and before long she had helped him slip the shirt up over her head and impatiently tugged his boxer shorts down off his hips to leave them both completely bare against one another beneath his blanket.

"So, is this the kind of make-up stuff you were expecting?" Dipper has panted jokingly into Mabel's ear between increasingly heated kisses.

"Nope, this is regular '_I'm in love with you' stuff_," Mabel replied, her face flushed as she nipped her teeth gently into Dipper's neck.

Dipper tried not to let his brain go completely numb when she started to suck gently against his throat, and she looked up at him with a slightly evil grin when she noticed the faraway look in his eyes.

"Well, maybe 20% make-up stuff... 30 tops," she admitted before she mashed her lips against his hard and dug her nails hard into his shoulders when she felt his fingers trail gently down her belly and start stroking against her teasingly.

Neither of them had much to say again for a while though, distracted as they were by things more interesting than simple words. Mabel had her teeth clamped down on her lower lip hard enough to muffle the little squeaks and gasps that Dipper was starting to coax out of her and before long the boy was fumbling around the tangle of blankets and pillows for Mabel's discarded nightshirt, finally pulling out the small foil square package from its pocket triumphantly as she smiled up at him.

There was a pause - a brief moment of stillness between Dipper recovering the condom and the proceeding flurry of activity when he found his eyes locked with Mabel's and felt something pass through them and between them... he wasn't sure if he could ever put it into words, but if he tried the closest would have been a sense of _completeness _that seemed to come over him in that moment. He knew where he was, and who he was & what he was doing - and all of the uncertainty and worry and stress that had been bothering him suddenly seemed ridiculous.

Of course things were going to be okay.

Why shouldn't they be?

He had Mabel and she had him and that was that.

Before long though they each found their thoughts buried under layers of competing sensations. Mabel's legs wrapping themselves tightly around Dipper's hips to hold him inside her. The feel of her white, even teeth biting less than gently into his shoulder to muffle the moans that wanted to claw their way out of her throat. The dizzying feeling when that coil of heat deep in Mabel's belly started to tighten up with each passing second. The pounding of Dipper's heart in his chest as he felt himself getting closer. Sweat soaked skin sliding and slipping together amidst panting breaths and desperate kisses and frantic whispers that were half curses and half declarations of love. That moment that seemed to drag out forever when Mabel felt herself pushed to the edge, almost screaming in relief when that last twinge of pleasure was enough to let it all flow out from her. The sudden blinding flash when her tightly shut eyelids flew open to stare at nothing and her mouth hung open in a cute little 'O'...

* * *

The stars had faded from the sky and its deep purple shades had given away to an ever lightening gray, but Dipper hadn't bothered to take much notice of it. He was enjoying the feel of Mabel dozing gently in the crook of his arm, her head resting gently against his chest. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost 5 AM and he reluctantly nudged Mabel awake. She had slipped her discarded nightshirt back over her head and planted a final quick kiss on his cheek before she made her way to the bedroom door, no more eager to be discovered sleeping in her brothers bed than he was.

"You know... when we're in living on our own in college we could probably sleep together like that all the time and not have to split up in the morning," she said as she paused by the doorway.

Dipper felt a smile spread across his face at the thought... especially at the unspoken agreement that there _was _going to be a _them _once they were out in the world. A shared future.

"Something else to look forward to about college then," he replied.

The door clicked shut and Dipper flopped back bonelessly on his bed, exhausted and elated and feeling a sense of energy and excitement that he hadn't felt in a while.

He had his whole life ahead of him, and more importantly he knew that he had someone who wanted to share it with him through thick and thin.


End file.
